Students Engagement Using Polls in Virtual Sessions of Physiology, Pathology, and Pharmacology at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background Active involvement of students in class using technology is associated with effective learning and understanding. This work intended to analyze the impact of interactive teaching on medical students’ engagement, learning, performance, understanding and attendance in virtual classes of physiology, pathology, and pharmacology during COVID-19 pandemic. Methods A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out at college of medicine at King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS) in Riyadh during January-April 2022. Third- and fourth-year medical students filled a self-reported questionnaire that assessed students’ engagement, understanding, performance, and attendance during the sessions of three courses within the curriculum. The Chi-square test or Fisher’s exact test was used to compare the difference between the survey responses. Results A total of 184/234 questionnaires were completed and returned, with an overall response rate of 78.6%. 55% of the participants were involved at least more than 5 times in polls during the class. 86.9% of the students agreed on enjoying participation in polls during the class, and 88.9% recommended the utilization of the polls again. Participation in polls improved understanding of 88%, and performance of 63% of the students. In addition, 38% were neutral regarding attendance improvement and spending more time for the class. 18% of fourth-year students disagree that polls improve the grades compared to third-year students, 4.1% and the agreement is about 50% of each year. Conclusion In conclusion, this study showed that there is an impact of using interactive polls in virtual classes in medical students at KSAU-HS. It is recommended to continue using polls in all subjects in on-site sessions. This will be a great preface step toward switching the traditional teaching to the interactive teaching using flipped classroom strategy in the future.