Principal components analysis of educational resources usage among undergraduate medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic in Southern Haryana, India

Abstract

Background: The year 2019–2020 has seen worldwide pandemic resulting from COVID-19 which posed the closure of teaching institutions including medical colleges and have put the students in dilemma. Aim: The present study was conducted with the aim to evaluate the accessible and preferable educational resources among medical students during this pandemic phase. Materials and Methods: This web-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 392 undergraduate medical students after obtaining informed consent during April 2020 using a 24-item structured questionnaire with close-ended responses. Existence of clustering within the student's preferred educational resources was investigated using principal components analysis (PCA). Results: The mean age of the study participants was 20.71 ± 1.65 with 51.3% males and 48.7% females. The major response regarding educational resources were online lectures, online teaching videos reading textbook, and written notes. Wilcoxon signed-rank test revealed that preference for online lectures, online teaching videos, interactive online materials, and medical apps were found to be statistically significant for learning when compared to revision (P < 0.05). The clustering was observed along the online and offline differentiation of resources.Conclusion: This novel study has made an attempt to find out the common educational resources used during COVID-19 pandemic and also analysis using PCA was done to find the clustering of educational resources for new learning or revision of skills and knowledge. Given the increasing number of individuals for online educational resources, it is important to develop a body of evidence supporting teaching excellence and providing information about effective teaching tools in online education.