Abstract
BackgroundOn account of physical distancing measures, universities worldwide are strongly affected by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19). Thus, the dental school of Justus-Liebig-University Giessen (Germany) transferred the established “face-to-face” learning to online learning in the spring term 2020. The aim of this study was to assess the students’ and lecturers’ perspectives on the implementation of online learning due to COVID-19, using a questionnaire survey.MethodsAfter the online period, all students and lecturers were asked to fill out an online questionnaire containing evaluative statements regarding handling, didactic benefit, motivation, and overall assessment. Furthermore, the questionnaire for lecturers contained additional aspects regarding knowledge gain in terms of providing online learning. Besides that, students and lecturers were asked for the amount of online learning in the future curriculum (independent of COVID-19). Data were subjected to regression analysis and T-test (p < .05).Results36.8% of students preferred “face-to-face” learning instead of sole online learning. An increase of know how concerning online teaching was observable for lecturers. Both, students and lecturers, want to keep up with online courses in the future curriculum. However, in terms of the optimal amount of online learning a significant difference between students’ and lecturers’ perspective was observed. While students suggested 53.2% (24.9) (mean (standard deviation)) lecturers only stated 38.6% (21.5).ConclusionsWithin the limitation of this study, students’ and lecturers’ showed a predominantly positive perspective on the implementation of online learning, providing the chance to use online learning even beyond COVID-19 in the future curriculum.
Highlights
On account of physical distancing measures, universities worldwide are strongly affected by SARSCoV-2 (COVID-19)
Dental education at universities worldwide is strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic [7, 8] and dental schools have to face a new challenge to implement “distance learning” tools to continue dental education, which is strongly demanded by students [9, 10]
Teaching concept of the Giessen dental school Before the COVID-19 pandemic, practical preclinical and clinical courses were accompanied by theoretical “face-to-face” courses distributed over a 16-week semester
Summary
On account of physical distancing measures, universities worldwide are strongly affected by SARSCoV-2 (COVID-19). Even though some universities already implemented online courses before the COVID-19 pandemic [14], normally dental education in Germany features “face-to-face” teaching. In other countries, digitalization at dental schools has been characterized as a slow process [14] This pandemic does create the need but rather may provide the chance to accelerate digital transformation in medical education [8, 15]. This could have a positive effect on future dental education even beyond COVID-19. That means online learning is only applicable to theoretical learning content
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