Evaluation of Medical Students' Satisfaction with the Virtual Assessment of Cardiac Physiology Course

Abstract

Background: Universities have switched to virtual assessments due to the spread of COVID-19 around the world. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the satisfaction level of medical students at the Abadan University of Medical Sciences (AUMS) with the virtual assessment methods of the cardiac physiology course. Methods: This study was conducted on 42 medical students of AUMS who were in the second semester of 2020 - 2021 (COVID-19 pandemic) and participated in the cardiac physiology course. Researchers developed an online questionnaire with 17 questions about students' satisfaction with assessment methods. Data were collected and organized in SPSS Software Version 21 for descriptive statistical analysis. Results: The mean age of the participants was 21.4 ± 2.08 years, of whom 76.2% (32) agreed that a higher percentage of the score should relate to the virtual formative assessment and 78.6% (33) experienced more stress in virtual summative assessment compared to the formative method. About 93.6% (39) agreed that all virtual summative assessment questions should be multiple-choice, and 88.4% (37) believed that allocating 1 to 2 minutes for each multiple-choice summative assessment question lowers their stress levels. Conclusions: According to the results, the virtual formative assessment had an accepted place in the cardiac physiology course and helped students reduce stress and learn more. The students preferred summative assessment questions to be multiple-choice due to the difficulty of the cardiac physiology course. More research should be conducted on this subject with a larger sample size in future studies.

Virtual Practical Examination for Student Nurse Educators in Health Sciences Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Narrative Review

“…Online practical examination such as telecommunication technology simulation can be an effective strategy to assess clinical skills competencies and provides personalised effective and immediate feedback to students [ 47 , 54 ]. Furthermore, it is suggested that online evaluation had benefits and expected impacts on student and teacher happiness and performance during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 63 ], and also improved the teaching and learning process both in managing distance education, increasing class size and staff workload [ 48 , 50 ]. Despite the concerns that included unfamiliarity and limited virtual assessment experience and the insufficient number of information technology technicians that interferes with proper digitalisation [ 48 ], the convenience of virtual clinical assessment including the removal of travelling to examination centres provides opportunity to partake at the comfort of both students and the examiners’ homes [ 59 ].…”