Abstract
Higher education has changed significantly since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Medical education programs with extensive practical and interactive components faced major challenges to protect students, faculty and patients. In response to COVID-19, many medical schools worldwide shut down undergraduate medical education and converted most of their teaching to digital formats. The aim of this paper is to assess the attitude towards and adoption of the novel learning environment among undergraduate medical students during COVID-19. Two studies were conducted to analyze specific aspects of the adaption of digital teaching during the digital summer semester 2020 (study 1), and to compare student satisfaction and their feeling of preparedness for exams in the digital semester compared to traditional semesters (study 2). Results show that there are numerous pros and cons of digital teaching. Pros were the large flexibility and large-scale availability of digital teaching materials. Cons were the lack of interactions with peers, professionals, and patients in practice. Results also show that female students as well as year 1 students seemingly coped better with the digital learning environment. Students with childcare or job obligations also benefited from the large flexibility. While student satisfaction decreased in the digital semester, they did not feel less prepared for exams. Cross-sectional comparisons revealed that student satisfaction and agreement gradually decreased in the comparison of the different cohorts with fourth year students being the least satisfied and showing the least agreement regarding the feeling of preparedness for exams. Altogether, our results indicate that students were able to cope with digital teaching, but clearly, some groups of students were able to better adapt to the novel learning environment. This might demand the introduction of tailored educational support services for different groups of students during COVID-19 as they progress through medical school.
Highlights
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and its consequences have an impact on private, professional and social life of the general population and specific groups (Vindegaard and Benros, 2020)
Several items regarding the adaption of digital teaching were assessed in study 1 (July, 2020)
The largest approval was found regarding the appreciation of the possibility to use digital teaching material repeatedly
Summary
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and its consequences have an impact on private, professional and social life of the general population and specific groups (Vindegaard and Benros, 2020). Undergraduate medical education usually applies many different formats in teaching (i.a., bedside-teaching, laboratory courses, practical training) and in assessment (i.a., Multiple-Choice-Questions, Objective Structured Clinical Examinations, mini-clinical evaluation exercise) (Holzinger et al, 2020; Vanderbilt et al, 2013). All Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCE) were converted into Multiple Choice tests. This rapid change of the learning environment may cause several effects among medical students. Positive and negative effects of the learning environment on health profession education have been reported (Gruppen et al, 2019; Weiss et al, 2013) and strategies to improve the learning environment in undergraduate medical education to promote students’ well-being were recommended before the pandemic began (Wasson et al, 2016; Dyrbye et al, 2020). Learning environments that are perceived as unsupportive are typically associated with high levels of depression, burnout or exhaustion and medical students’ level of mental health decreases the further they progress in their undergraduate medical education (Brazeau et al, 2014; Dyrbye et al, 2010; Schwenk et al, 2010)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
