Abstract
Many universities in the U.S. shifted from in-person teaching to online teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instructors’ acceptance of online teaching plays a crucial role, as the acceptance level can impact instructors’ online teaching behaviors. This qualitative study examined medicine and public health instructors’ perceptions of online teaching using the Technology Acceptance Model 2 (TAM2) model. Through semi-structured interviews with ten instructors in a Midwest university in the U.S., this study found that instructors had a high level of acceptance of online teaching. Instructors perceived the usefulness of online teaching in terms of learning objectives, assessment, instructional methods, and learning experience. Online teaching was perceived as useful overall, although challenges existed, such as online interaction, assessment, and hands-on practices. Regarding ease of use in online teaching, instructors perceived technology was easy to use; yet some pedagogical challenges existed, such as class engagement, the focus of learners’ attention, and transforming hands-on lab or clinical sessions online. The blended model is recommended to use for teaching and learning in medical and public health education post the pandemic. Detailed implications for practice and research were discussed in the end.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the global education system from all settings (UNESCO, 2020), including U.S higher education (Crawford et al, 2020)
The purpose of this study is to explore medicine and public health instructors’ online teaching acceptance in higher education through using the Technology Acceptance Model 2 (TAM2)
This study examined instructor’s perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use of online teaching, identified the challenges they encountered, as well as the support that instructors needed while shifting courses online
Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic has influenced the global education system from all settings (UNESCO, 2020), including U.S higher education (Crawford et al, 2020). The shift to fully online learning during the pandemic (Liang et al, 2020) led to challenges in medical and public health education (Franchi, 2020). During transitioning courses online, the hands-on components such as face-to-face clerkship, clinical, and lab sessions were canceled (Gaur et al, 2020); and it made learners lose the opportunity to practice, collaborate, and build relationships (Edigin et al, 2020; Ferrel & Ryan, 2020; Gaur et al, 2020). Through depicting the perceived advantages and drawbacks of online teaching practice, it revealed online teaching scenarios in medical and health education during the pandemic, indicated possible approaches to improve online teaching from pedagogical and technological perspectives during and post the pandemic, and suggested to use a blended model for teaching and learning in medical and public health education during and post the pandemic
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