ADVANTAGES, DISADVANTAGES AND LIMITATION OF E-LEARNING AMONG MEDICAL STUDENTS DURING COVID OUTBREAK

Abstract

Introduction: Worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in the closure of educational institutions. This examined how equipped academic institutions were to handle a situation where the use of cutting-edge hardware and software to support successful online learning is necessary. Such closure hastened the creation of online learning environments in order to prevent disruptions to instruction. The main issue facing many medical colleges during the COVID-19 pandemic, however, is how to provide and use online learning resources in an e-learning system. During the COVID-19 outbreak an online learning environment is the only alternative in circumstances where access to college and university classrooms is not possible. Given the increased usage of online modalities during COVID-19, it is critical to assess their efficacy in facilitating diverse stakeholder-based teaching and learning. Online learning has been implemented by medical institutions during the COVID-19 outbreak. This study investigates how medical students view its advantages, disadvantages, and limitations.

Material & Methods: A survey was conducted to examine the experiences of 502 medical students from April to June 2021 who were taking online classes during Covid 19 pandemic with Microsoft Teams as an academic tool. For this goal, a digitally self-structured questionnaire was implemented to collect their responses regarding academic coverage, satisfaction, prospects for faculty contribution, and the internet connection, the teachers' varied pedagogical approaches, and recommendations for improvements. The analysis of the data was done with SPSS version 23.0. For each of the factors, percentages were calculated for the responses.

Results: Efficiency, remote learning, immense flexibility, and asynchronous learning were main advantages regarding virtual learning, difficult adaptation, lack of motivation, lack of interaction with teachers and class fellows were prominent disadvantages, technology issues/ weak internet connection and alternative online educational platforms were main limitations during online classes.

Conclusion: During the COVID-19 pandemic, online learning was a savior in disguise, but it also presented certain challenges because it was new to medical students. These issues should be rectified.