Abstract:

The shift to remote teaching, mostly online, due to the urgency to avoid in-person contact during the Covid-19 pandemic, was quickly implemented. With the mandated transition to online learning triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic and the educational goals desired to be achieved, students’ adaptation was inevitably demanded, particularly those who had no prior online learning experience. Despite being recognized as digital natives, students may be also challenged by unfamiliar software (Binks et al., 2021). Furthermore, learning in an online environment requires self-regulated learning skills and online discussion facilitating skills, which meant that students needed sufficient support and coaching for this transition. On top of that, pandemic-related anxiety and stress (Rajab et al., 2020) and the different public health interventions aimed at mitigating the viral transmission such as the closing of K-12 schools and childcare at the same time have imposed extra burden to balance school/work and life. Put it differently, students majored in different fields of medical sciences might have faced different challenges in online learning, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.

To date, studies that examine the challenges students from medical sciences had encountered when all or most courses were delivered online at a time have not been documented. Additionally, whether students of different year cohorts, academic learning achievement and (online) learning experiences, and life circumstances experienced different challenges in terms of learning content and discouraging factors related to the field of study and the online learning modality has not been thoroughly investigated. This limits effort to ‘modernize’ medical education (words used by Binks et al., 2021).

The present study investigated the challenges experienced by students from different programs of health sciences in a course that they attributed as the most challenging during the Covid-19 pandemic. Differences among students of different socio-demographic backgrounds, life circumstances, educational background, and academic achievement were examined. A questionnaire was employed to collect data from 723 students following bachelor and master programs at the faculty of Medicine (University of Liege, Belgium), including in particular 248 students of Medicine (34.3%), 141 Pharmacy (19.5%), 115 Biomedicine (15.9%), 109 Physiotherapy (15.1%), Public Health (n=49, 6.8%), Motor Sciences (Physical Education, n=36, 5.0%), and Dentistry (n=25, 3.5%). The results revealed that the most reported challenges were difficult learning content, course intensity, feeling of stress and worry, online learning implementation due to Covid-19 measures, feeling of failure (not having learnt what was supposed to be learnt), and lack of instructors’ interaction and support. Group differences regarding the challenges perceived were found. Particularly, more female students, bachelor, full-time students, students in early stages of the learning trajectory, low and average achievers reported having challenges with difficult learning content, course intensity, and stress as well as online learning. The findings, therefore, highlighted the role of faculty-led and instructors’ support in supporting students’ learning at their early stages and enhancing their well-being during the whole learning process if online learning is to be institutionalized.

Keywords:

Remote/online learning, Covid-19, medical sciences, higher education, (cognitive) challenges.