Remote learning during Covid‐19 lockdown: A study on anatomy and histology education for pharmacy students in Jordan

Abstract

Health professionals, including pharmacists, must be able to connect human organs and systems' structure to their function. Therefore, the theoretical concepts of anatomy and histology are one of the cornerstones in healthcare professional curricula, and understanding these concepts is fundamental for safe practice. Thus, a foundation of anatomy and histology knowledge is crucial for pharmacy graduates upon which they can build their pharmacological knowledge (Finn et al., 2018). Pharmacist training programs in Jordan require anatomy and histology courses and dictate that they should be studied within the first two years (Al-Wazaify et al., 2006). The Higher Education Accreditation Commission (HEAC) inJordan approves and regulates higher education programs, including pharmacy, and it oversees program accreditation guidelines and standards for the medical and health sciences majors. Bachelor of pharmacy program must include a minimum of 160 credit hours per the HEAC (previously 150 credit hours), where a credit hour is

Students’ Perceptions of Online Learning during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Approach

“…The most frequently evoked were flexible schedules and convenience, comfortable environments, and enhanced technical skills [41]. Others reported advantages include the ease of sharing educational materials, effective access to study resources, updated learning materials, and flexibility in time and space [55][56][57]. Further studies also mentioned protecting one's health and ensuring the community's safety, saving travel time, exposing one to new forms of learning, keeping up with the original plan of the semester, having extra time for self-study, and easy access to online resources [38,58], as well as the ability to stay at home, continuous access to online materials, the opportunity to learn at one's own pace, and comfortable surroundings [36].…”

Perceptions of Pharmacy Students on the E-Learning Strategies Adopted during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

“…Similarly, only around half of the pharmacy students (or a slightly more than half of the students in some cases) manifested positive perceptions on specific online courses during the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., an anatomy and histology course; a virtual microbiology simulation; chemistry crossword puzzles as revision aids) [7,[44][45][46]. Moreover, students' understanding may have been affected in one study [7], and knowledge acquisition was not statistically different between both settings (i.e., in-person vs. online education) in another study [43]. Pharmacy students expressed positive perceptions of an online communication course, which may have been influenced by students previous e-learning experience [47].…”

“…Questionnaires seem to be an appropriate and suitable tool to evaluate pharmacy students' perceptions of e-learning. Questionnaires/surveys were developed to evaluate the attitudes of pharmacy students based on different types of questions/topics, such as: "what do think about your attitude toward e-learning", "I would prefer to have online learning to become the new normal", "I feel comfortable to actively communicate with my classmates and instructors online", "I feel that taking courses online will help me to remember/master them better", "I prefer in-class approach as it provides a lot of interaction with my instructors and students" or "Distance learning has increased my collaborative work with my colleagues, whether in the dormitory or remotely" [7,33,50,51]. The questionnaires/questions were heterogeneously developed.…”

“…The advantages of e-learning are described in diverse studies, such as, time flexibility, easy administration, accessibility, comfort, self-directed learning, and asynchronous learning [7,8]. Among other things, students identified the following benefits of e-learning.…”

“…Some examples of text transcripts from students are then presented: "Easier to get to the lecture on time", "I have more time to study and finish assignments now", "It's great to study from home, and I have time to write all the notes I need which helps me keep up with the curriculum", or "The positive points to me are that we can review our lecture more than once and at any time" [7]. On the contrary, diverse weaknesses of online education were also described, such as lack of contact with the instructor/teacher, lack of human interactions, lack of immediate feedback, inadequate internet connectivity, technical issues, or more limited interactions with colleagues [7,9]. Additionally, the substitution of in-person laboratorial or clinical practices by online education presented some constrains.…”