The Role of Online Teaching Among the Undergraduate Dental Students During the Current COVID-19 Pandemic in India: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Objective: To assess the usefulness of online teaching for undergraduate students during this Corona pandemic, to point the drawbacks of online teaching, and to learn the areas of improvement in online teaching for the future. Material and Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study on 130 students was done in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India. The questionnaire consisted of two parts, personal details and specific information. The first part of the questionnaire consisted of questions related to age, gender, etc. The second part had questions pertaining to online teaching. Pearson's Chi-square test was applied and the level of significance was set at 5%. Results: Most of the students (83.3%) were in the view that classroom lectures are the best mean of imparting knowledge, which was significant (p<0.001). A significant number of students (88.1%) agreed that online teaching is the best method of teaching apart from classroom teaching. Almost all the students (93%) agreed significantly that online teaching is the best way to learn in this present pandemic scenario. Most students (59.6%) agreed that connectivity/network issue is a major drawback in online teaching, which is again significant (p<0.001). Conclusion: Here in these testing times, the role of online teaching becomes important for medical/dental students, both undergraduates and postgraduates, to keep up with their studies.

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on Academic Activity and Health Status among Romanian Medical Dentistry Students; A Cross-Sectional Study

“…In light of national COVID-19 infection-control recommendations, dental faculties had to suspend in-person instruction, and teaching activity was conducted online. Some researchers who focused on online dental education pointed out the rapid change adopted by dental faculties in many countries, such as the USA [ 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 ], Germany [ 10 ], Italy [ 11 ], China [ 12 , 13 ], Chile [ 14 ], Brazil [ 8 , 15 , 16 ], Pakistan [ 17 ], Nepal [ 18 , 19 ], Indonesia [ 20 ], India [ 21 , 22 ], Jordan [ 23 ], Romania [ 24 , 25 , 26 ], Portugal [ 27 , 28 ], Cyprus [ 29 ], Australia [ 8 , 30 ], and Spain [ 31 ]. During the first year of the pandemic, the academic research teams additionally wanted to identify the differences between countries in what aspects of dental education were disrupted.…”

Panorama brasileiro da formação de enfermeiros durante a pandemia da COVID-19

“…No contexto pandêmico, vale destacar que um número significativo de IES disponibilizaram auxílio aos estudantes, que incluíram desde a capacitação para o uso de plataformas digitais até acesso à internet. Em estudo realizado com estudantes de odontologia indianos, identificou-se que 93% deles consideraram que, na conjuntura da pandemia, o ensino online é a melhor maneira de aprender (17) . Por outro lado, uma pesquisa realizada com discentes de medicina do Brasil, República de Cabo Verde e Guiné-Bissau, também durante a pandemia de COVID-19, identificou que 8,65% dos participantes afirmaram que tanto os equipamentos quanto a internet disponível não permitiriam acompanhar as atividades em ER, sendo que 19,2% julgaram a realização do ER inviável.…”

Dental Students’ Perception Towards Internal Medicine

“…[7][8][9] However, with the changing preference of students and with options of so many teaching-learning methodologies, it has been a challenge to devise the most suited approach. [10][11][12][13] It was encouraging to find that majority of the students responded to be interested in internal medicine. The respondent's population was fairly well distributed in terms of age but a significant portion of the respondents were females, most of them were doing their internship and not everyone had appeared for their board exams in internal medicine.…”