What just happened? Impact of on-campus activities suspension on pharmacy education during COVID-19 lockdown – A students’ perspective

Abstract

Introduction COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdown, suspending all on-campus educational activities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), compelling to continue the education online. We explored pharmacy students’ perspective on its impact on their learning. Methods A Twitter chat was organized on three consecutive days, after final examinations, inviting all pharmacy students in KSA to participate. Day 1 chat included 11 questions regarding learning and assessment, Day 2 chat included six questions about online examinations and six questions about technology use, Day 3 chat included six questions related to lessons learnt from the learning experiences during the lockdown. The questions were validated and piloted before the chat. The responses were copied, reviewed to remove any confidential information, and thematically analyzed by two teams of research students independently. Results During the three-day chat, 790 responses were received in total. Thematic analysis generated 944 codes which were categorized into 43 subthemes. These subthemes were further categorized into six main themes: ‘facilitators for online education’, ‘barriers for online education’, ‘online versus onsite education’, ‘role of technology in online education’, ‘suggestions for improving online education’ and ‘long-term impact of online education during lockdown’. Participants highlighted several facilitators and barriers which affected their education during the lockdown, compared online education with onsite education, and provided suggestions for improving online education based on their learning experiences during the lockdown. Conclusion As COVID-19 pandemic and its repercussions are expected to last longer, pharmacy colleges and academic staff will find these findings useful to prepare for the coming years, ensuring pedagogical and accreditation standards.

The impact of COVID-19 on UK higher education students: experiences, observations and suggestions for the way forward

“…In this current study, participants felt that their interactions with academic personnel during online education were not the same as when they were on campus, consistent with Alqurshi (2020) and Mishra et al (2020). A study by Ali et al (2021) also found that their participants felt that their interactions with educators during online education were not the same as when they were on campus. Although technological advancements offer video features that simulate face-to-face interactions, it is unlikely they will never be able to replace real face-to-face interactions.…”

“…In terms of the qualitative section, many of the comments support the issues raised above and the researcher reemphasises here the importance of the student's voice. Additional skills discovered to manage the online teaching process included virtual classroom experience, patience, empathy, care for students, excellent presentation skills, and proper handling of the teaching-learning tools available with user-friendly features (Ali et al , 2021; Alqurshi, 2020). The importance of face-to-face education cannot be understated, but e-learning can be used in combination with these conventional approaches to offer improved productivity, efficiency and comparative advantage to deliver quality education (Dhawan, 2020).…”

Life Long Learning in Pharmacy Virtual Conference Proceedings 2021

“…Background: COVID-19 pandemic has affected all walks of life including the education sector (Ali et al, 2021). It is imperative to investigate how pharmacy students perceive their education in the new academic year, the impact of oncampus suspension on learning and the potential long-term effects on their career.…”

Pharmacy Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes towards Online Education during COVID-19 Lockdown in Saudi Arabia

“…For this, technical support for students and staff is imperative as reported by Almetwazi and his colleagues for their college of pharmacy in Saudi Arabia [ 23 ]. Troubleshooting for faculty staff for the efficient use of LMS has also been emphasized on a global scale [ 24 ]. Our students scored higher in this domain, and this is the reflection of the extra efforts made by our IT department in providing support to our students and the faculty staff.…”