A Qualitative Approach on Impacts of Online Learning Towards University of Cyberjaya Clinical Years Medical Students

Abstract

The recent COVID-19 pandemic has taken a toll and impacted most sectors, including the academic field. With this sudden shift away from the classroom in many parts of the globe, some are wondering whether the adoption of online learning will continue to persist post-pandemic, and how such a shift would impact the worldwide education market. Most countries have shifted to online learning in adaptation to the new normal. In this study, we aimed to study perceptions towards the impact of online learning on University of Cyberjaya (UoC) clinical year medical students through a comprehensive interview. A total of 23 participants had joined this study including 13 students with a focus group of another five students, four clinical years lecturers, and an IT staff in UoC. As various people may have different perceptions, a focus group was organised so that students could discuss their experiences in greater depth. The information was gathered through in-depth semistructured questionnaire interviews done via Microsoft Teams. The results were arranged based on topics that were covered, including interactions between lecturers and students during online courses, students’ experiences impacting the effectiveness of online learning, impediments to online learning, and effective approaches to improve online learning. There were 32 codes and 16 themes altogether. Through this study, we conclude that online learning is still beneficial but has limitations due to various factors. Therefore, more efforts still need to be made to improve the quality of online learning, especially for clinical years students.