Perception of faculty toward online teaching and learning in the undergraduate medical students during coronavirus disease-19 pandemic

Abstract

Background: Online teaching and learning has become increasingly popular in medical education during this coronavirus disease (COVID)-19 pandemic. Most of the students and faculties have adapted to this relatively new model of online teaching-learning, but many teachers experienced some sort of difficulty in transition to online teaching. The digital technology plays a great role in the interaction of faculty and students through online learning platform. Objective: The objective of the study was to determine the perceptions of medical faculties toward online teaching and learning in the lockdown period at a SVS Medical College, Mahabubnagar, Telangana state, India. Materials and Methods: The study was taken up after the institutional ethical clearance. By non-probability convenience sampling method, the sample size was 107. A predesigned and pretested questionnaire was administered to all the faculties who were involved in online teaching after taking informed consent. A 5-point Likert scale was used in the questionnaire. Data were collected, tabulated, and analyzed statistically. Results: A total of 107 responses were obtained. About 56% of faculties were having very good knowledge about online teaching and techniques before orientation program. Overall 52% of the faculties have positive perception toward online teaching in this lockdown period. Whooping 95% of faculty members expressed that face-to-face teaching is better than online teaching. Conclusion: Online teaching and learning became quite important in the past few months in medical education due to COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The online learning has its own advantages for enhancing students’ learning and knowledge and can be considered a potential teaching method in medical education.