One year into online classes, a comparison with conventional classroom teaching – A survey in North Kerala

Abstract

Background: In the early 2020, COVID was declared as a pandemic and then on all the educational institutions were forced to close down for regular classes. Almost all the previous studies were done comparing different groups of students or different academic year. However, our study was done on the same set of students and in the same academic year itself with the same teaching faculty, where students underwent 8 months of online classes followed by 2 months of classroom teaching. Aims and Objectives: This study was done to know the effectiveness of e-classes in comparison to conventional classroom teaching among professional students in north Kerala in terms of gaining knowledge, balance between the practical and theoretical experiences, and availability of e-resources. Materials and Methods: One thousand medical college students from three different medical colleges in north Kerala voluntarily participated in the study which was on an online questionnaire-based survey. The questionnaire was self-made and based on Likert five point scale. Results: The study included both boys and girls. In most of the fields such as effective communication, interaction, effective teaching methodology, and understanding the topic and providing feedback, students found classroom learning much better than online learning only advantage of online learning that they found was the convenience as it could be taken from home without having to travel and without facing the hostel-related adjustment issues. Conclusion: To make online methods more acceptable, we will have to bring in various changes and modifications in our way of teaching. More animations and smaller groups may be needed. Individual attention will be possible with smaller groups per class and feedbacks can be taken with ease. With these changes in teaching methods, online mode can be made more effective in reaching to students and making it acceptable by them.