Perception of online learning among undergraduate students at suez canal medical school during the covid-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional study

Background: Many adaptations to medical education have been made in response to the new emergent COVID-19 pandemic and its enormous global effects including the teaching and learning strategies to assure the educational process's safety and advancement. Accordingly, it was necessary to implement new online instructional approaches at the Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University in Egypt. Objective: To assess online learning advantages and disadvantages as perceived by medical students in addition to their preference regarding online vs face-to-face learning, Subjects and methods: This study was conducted as a cross-sectional study that included 340 students who filled an online survey consisting of 16 questions and was conducted on the Google Forms platform. Target population: years 1, 2 and 3 undergraduate medical students at Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University who experienced online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results: The mean age of students was 19.57±1.02, ranged from 17 to 23 years, 61% of them were females. About 63.8% of students had no previous experience with online learning. The main perceived advantages were the ability to stay home (63.8%), comfortable surrounding (52.1%) and access to online materials (47.1%), while the main perceived disadvantages were technical problems (67.6%), lack of interaction with patients (58.8%), and reduced interaction with teachers (48.5%). Most of the students found face-to-face learning is superior to online learning in improving the knowledge (p=0.005), clinical skills (p<0.001) and social competence (p<0.001). Though 77% of them rated online learning as enjoyable. Conclusion: Most of our participants preferred traditional face-to-face learning over the online learning. Stakeholders should take the required steps to improve learning by reducing the disadvantages and increasing advantages of online learning as perceived by students during this study.