E-learning Versus On-Site Learning: an Approach to Determining Medical Students’ Perceptions at King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences

Abstract

Abstract Background Recently, the world has faced the COVID-19 crisis that has forced the education sector to switch from on-site learning to online learning. Thus, the aim of the current study was to investigate students’ satisfaction, performance, and communication during online learning. Methods This research was a descriptive, cross-sectional study. The participants were fourth-year medical students studying the musculoskeletal and skin (MSKS) block online and the neuroscience and vision (NEUV) block on site at King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences/College of Medicine (KSAU-HS/COMJ) in the 2020–2021 and 2021–2022 academic years, respectively. We distributed two web-based questionnaires and obtained the students’ mean scores from the assessment unit. We collected qualitative and quantitative data and analysed it using descriptive statistics based on a chi-squared independent t-test. Results A total of 148 respondents completed the theoretical questionnaire, of which 35.1% were satisfied with the basic medical sciences (BMS) online course, and 26.35% believed that the online course material was easier to understand. The interaction among students and between students and instructors was much worse during the online courses (29.73% and 28.37%, respectively). We observed an association between gender and higher grade point average (GPA) online (p = .0164). For the second questionnaire, there were 120 participants. Although 68.33% of them were satisfied with online problem-based learning (PBL), 56.66% reported worse performance in online PBL. Of all the students, 74.16% preferred on-site practical sessions, and 66.6% believed that they performed better in on-site practical sessions. We identified a significant difference in the students’ mean scores (p < .0001). Conclusion This research revealed that the flexibility and convenience of online learning had a positive effect on students’ satisfaction. Our findings showed that a hybrid (online and on site) method can be used effectively in medical schools, but some aspects of the courses cannot be fully replaced by online learning.