Impact of Online Lectures on Medical Students During COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

Introduction: In recent days, trend of taking online lectures is booming in medical education all around the globe. Online lectures show its greatest importance during COVID-19 outbreak and lockdown period, where it is the only possible way to teach the international students from home. However, there are several issues including lack of support from management, ignorance & resistance of other faculty members, changes in syllabus of medical education putting extra pressure on overloaded teaching faculty, low level of satisfaction in students, poor internet connection, poor software qualities, poor language skills in students,lack of communication between teacher and students. Material and method: We ran an online survey, under which we send the set of Questions (given in the Table 1) to 54 volunteer Fourth Year Medical students, who were taking online lectures during COVID-19 Pandemic. Results: In our online survey we found that 92 % students agree with idea of saving energy and time through online lectures. 46 % students face poor internet problems, 20 % students face problems to understand online lectures because of their poor language skills,22% students reported lack of concentration during online classes, 38% students reported technical issues,42% students are satisfied, 42% partially satisfied, 10 % students not satisfied. 94% students believe that these online lectures are not enough to make students more confident and independent about medical knowledge. Additionally, 37% students (maximum number of students) reported that they like to take online lectures one zoom app. Conclusion: Online teaching in medical colleges is still a new concept;however, with improved technology, it can be a fruitful deal for the coming generations. During COVID -19, these online lectures became a crucial candlelight in the dark era of lockdown worldwide. Last but not the least, online lectures are not the substitute of face-to-face classroom lectures. Contrarily, if we solve the connectivity issues, electronic device issues, software problems, language issues etc., then only online lectures can reach up to the level of face-to-face classroom lectures.