The Effectiveness of Online Education in Basic Medical Sciences Courses during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia: Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) is an emerging pandemic that has caused significant disruptions to education, resulting in marked scholar closures across the world. The present study documents the student perception of the online educational process at six universities in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 lockdown period. The individual variable factors, i.e., institution, sex, and blended learning, that might influence student perception were also investigated. In this respect, a questionnaire that assessed the impact of COVID-19 on the online learning process and student perception was emailed to a total of 17,230 students from 3 institutions (medical, applied health and dental students) affiliated with six universities in Saudi Arabia. Principal component analysis (PCA) was performed to determine the validity of the questionnaire. A total of 4850 (28%) students responded to the questionnaire and 46.9% (n = 2275) of the respondents were highly satisfied with their online education. Analyses of the scores from the students showed a highly significant difference (p = 0.000) between the male and female students. Applied health students (highly satisfied score = 63.13) were the most satisfied with their online education, while medical students (highly satisfied score = 39.3) were the least satisfied with this education. In addition, applied health, dental and medical students showed a significantly higher score in favor of blended learning after schools re-open (p = 0.000). Collectively, student satisfaction with online education was common, and blended learning was preferred over the traditional format by both genders and all the students. The present data provide interesting contributions and evidence for policy makers and implementers, which might be helpful for the judgment side of decision making.

Medical students’ satisfaction level with e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and its related factors: a systematic review

“…As shown in Supplement 1, a total of 15,473 medical science students were enrolled in the 24 studies [1,3,12,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. The mean±standard deviation age of the participants was 20.84±2.06 years, and 58.23% were women.…”

“…Of the remaining 52 studies, after a full review of the full-text articles, 15 were excluded from the present systematic review due to an inadequate study design and 9 studies due to a lack of necessary information. Finally, 24 studies remained in this systematic review [1,3,12,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42].…”

“…The infection rate grew rapidly and was declared a global pandemic in March 2020, known as the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic [2]. COVID-19 has symptoms similar to those of the common cold, but can cause more severe complications such as bronchitis, pneumonia, or other functional failures, especially in vulnerable people [3]. Although older people are at higher risk for negative outcomes such as mortality, the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic affect everyone [4][5][6][7][8][9][10].…”

What's best, online or on-site? The write a scientific paper course

“…However, our attendees were happy to recommend WASP and this accords with the finding by other studies that overall, student satisfaction with online education is common, a finding common to both genders. [ 18 ] The low internal questionnaire Cronbach's consistency in the last course only is attributed to the inclusion of a large proportion of non-European attendees.…”

Female Saudi College students' e-learning experience amidst COVID-19 pandemic: An investigation and analysis

“…Stress was analyzed in terms of gender, academic variables, psychological variables etc. A survey among different types of health stream students such as medical, applied health and dentistry in different universities in Saudi Arabia studied the effectiveness of emergency remote learning [ 14 ]. A significant difference in satisfaction level was observed between male and female students.…”