A Cross Sectional Study on Perception of Medical Students on Online Medical Teaching in Present Scenario of COVID 19 in a Tertiary Care Medical Institute

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The present pandemic caused by COVID 19 has affected the world as a whole and social distancing became a part of our lives. Medical education like any other form of education was affected and online classes came to the rescue. Methods: This study was conducted with the rationale to find out how effective are online classes and what measures can be taken to further to simulate online classes as near as possible to physical classes. Google forms were given to undergraduate medical students. 183 students participated in this study. Likert’s scale was used to grade the scores from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Results: The observations revealed that only 2.73% students strongly agreed being comfortable with online classes and 6.55% participants strongly agreed that their internet connectivity was good. 1.64% strongly agreed and that they were able to follow the class and 14.98% strongly disagreed that there were no distracting agent. 16.94% strongly agreed that they are accustomed with the smart devices being used. About 25.13% disagreed that voice quality was good. Majority strongly agreed that recorded videos and hard copies of the class material would be helpful. On being asked if online classes are as good as the physical classes for theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge, most of them disagreed. Conclusion: Online classes is the important resource in hand for continuing medical teaching during pandemics, there is need to take more efforts for making it student-friendly by incorporating audio, video and texts which are interesting for the students. Technological support should be provided by institution and appropriate Faculty training is needed. © 2022, Medicolegal Association of Maharashtra. All rights reserved.