Medical Students’ Perception of Organization and Informatization of Teaching During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Background and aim: Outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had big impact on higher education system. To prevent spreading of the disease, distance learning was organised. The aim of this research was to assess medical students’ perception of quality of educational process during the COVID-19 pandemic.Respondents and methods: Online research was conducted during May 2021 on 142 students of fourth, fifth and sixth year of School of Medicine University of Zagreb. This research was conducted using Questionnaire for Assessing Quality of Distance Learning in Biomedicine Studies. It consists of 28 items which are rated using 7-point Likert scale and are distributed in six subscales. All statistical analyses were conducted using IBM® SPSS® Statistics for Windows (Version 25.0).Results: Statistically significant difference was found in Perception of Teachers’ Work between fourth and sixth year (p = 0.012), as well as Perception of Educational Environment and Personal Academic Achievements between fourth and fifth, and fourth and sixth year of study (p < 0.001). The lowest mean for all subscales was found in fourth year, except subscales Perception of Personal Academic Activity (3.51 ± 1.32) and Perception of Equipment Quality (6.22 ± 1.04). The highest mean was found in sixth year for subscales Perception of Distance Learning Organization (3.47 ± 1.04), Perception of Cooperation (4.39 ± 1.04) and Perception of Teachers’ Work (4.73 ± 0.96). For subscales Perception of Educational Environment and Personal Academic Achievements and Perception of Equipment Quality, the highest mean was found in the fifth year (5.42 ± 1.14 and 6.28 ± 1.01, respectively). Majority of students were satisfied with equipment quality and Internet connection they used, however most of them (N = 68, 47.9 %) thought that teachers were not qualified enough to use tools for online teaching.Conclusion: The highest quality of educational process was perceived by sixth-year (64.9 % of the total score), and the lowest by fourth-year medical students (58.7 % of the total score). Teachers should continue with their education in order to maximize the use of digital technology in achieving educational outcomes, especially in biomedical area.