Medical Staff Teaching Experience During COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background and Aims: The COVID-19 pandemic changed teaching and learning methods across the world. This cross-sectional study aimed to assess clinical tutor feedback on the e-learning at Taibah University Medical College during pandemic. Methods: Consenting medical faculty were asked to provide their feedback through an electronic semi-structured questionnaire which had both multiple choice and Likert scale responses. Sociodemographic data were also collected. The study was approved by Institutional Ethics Committee. Results: A total of 66 medical faculty members were participated. Most of the respondents were females (53%), almost half of them were Saudi nationals, and 48.4% had fewer than ten years of teaching experience. Most respondents felt that online teaching was the preferred choice during the pandemic, but over half of them (56.1%) favored classroom teaching for medical students. Almost fifty percent of the faculty members had not undergone training for medical education or online teaching. 86.4% of them felt that knowledge could be imparted through online teaching, but communication skills and psychomotor skills couldn’t be acquired by online teaching. Around 60% of teachers felt that it is difficult to assess the students through the virtual teaching method. Conclusions: The medical faculty members believe that e-learning is time-consuming, it decreases student-teacher interaction, and student evaluation and assessment are more difficult than classroom teaching. Virtual teaching is good for imparting knowledge; however, it is not the preferred method for teaching communication and psychomotor skills.