Online Medical Education: A look into the various perceptions, among students across India

Abstract

Background: The students during the Covid time had been made to adopt online education to socially
distance and pursue the curriculum at the safety of their homes. This type of education is important as the
future demands learning to be a hybrid of both online and offline. The study was done with an objective of
identifying various perceptions about online medical education among the students. Methodology: The crosssectional

study was done among 578 students across various medical colleges in India and the data was
collected using online platform where the questionnaire was regarding socio-demographic details, advantages
and disadvantages, teacher’s quality, hinderances and suggestions with respect to online education. The data
collected was analyzed using SPSS 21. Results: Out of the 578 subjects 386 (66.8%) were females and 413
(71.5%) responses were from private college. In the study 449 (77.7%) students were from the state of
Tamilnadu. The study showed a significant increase in the number of students using various learning
modalities like video lectures. Power point and pre-recorded lectures/tutorials after the advent of online
classes. Most of the students reported the maximum concentration time for videos and pre-recorded
lectures/tutorials, and least for PDF/ MS Word document. The study showed that 314(54%) students preferred
blended or hybrid learning in the future. Conclusion: In the study the students reported the need for high selfdiscipline
and

motivation considered necessary for the online education. The students reported more biased
attention and use of video-based lectures in terms of increased time spending and concentration time. So the
revised modules should be made available with importance towards visual capture and to reduce the
monotony of the medical education.