Satisfaction of Medical & Dental Students about Online Teaching during Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background: During Pandemic whole world has gone through a very uncertain period and every field of life underwent a drastic change. Educational institutes were also facing the same challenge. Abruptly shifting to online education system was a sudden shift both for students and faculty. However, it had to happen and it provided us with an opportunity to explore future avenues through this challenge. This study had been planned to explore its one aspect. Objective: The study was done to find out the satisfaction of medical students for online pathology teaching during the COVID-19 Pandemic. Study Design: It was a cross sectional survey. Settings: Study was carried out in 2 medical and 1 dental colleges of Faisalabad Pakistan. Duration: March 2020 to June 2020. Methods: A questionnaire consisting of 11 questions was designed to collect the data. It was distributed to 3^rd and 4^th year MBBS and 2^nd year BDS students. Data was then analyzed by SPSS version 24. Results: A total of 979 students participated in the study. Zoom was the most common software used by 661(68%) for online classes, followed by Google class room 318 (32%). 909 (93%) of the students had no previous online teaching experience. It was noticed that males were more comfortable with gadgets (P=0.014), satisfied with audiovisual quality (P=0.005) and their classes were carried out without technical errors (P=0.028). For the same reasons, they approved that computer medicated communication is an excellent medium for distance learning (P=0.001) and online teaching was a great learning opportunity for them (P=0.010). Females mostly disagree with exception of one point that their classes commenced timely (P=0.000). Private students were more comfortable interacting with teachers during online sessions (P=0.010) and satisfied with audiovisual quality (P=0.000). However, public students felt comfortable with the gadgets (P=0.000), and thought that computer mediated communication was an excellent medium for distance learning (p=0.046). Conclusion: Students of both private and public colleges agreed that the online teaching was satisfactory and an acceptable medium for distance learning. Moreover, there was good interaction of students with the teachers.