Abstract:

Technologies have been launching into education in recent years. This rapidly developing process is caused mainly by the development of technologies and emerging new ones, generations with different cognitive abilities than their parents, modern learning theories. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the massive use of technologies in training to overcome the lack of live contact during the social isolation. Due to a shortage of time and competence, maybe this was not performed in the best possible way for all parties. Yet educational institutions made great efforts to ensure a quality learning and teaching and many of them reported experience.

The attitudes of students towards technologies in training should be constantly studied because they underlay the internal motivation for learning. In this research, we seek to find an answer if distance training during the pandemic changed attitudes to learning with technologies of healthcare students from Medical University – Plovdiv, Bulgaria.

This cross-sectional study was carried out through an anonymous questionnaire in 2022 among 300 healthcare students from Medical University – Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The results were compared to a similar survey, carried out in 2019 among 300 students. Nonparametric statistical methods were applied.

The numbers of respondents were 251 in 2019 and 211 in 2022. The rate of return of filled questionnaires was 84% in 2019 and 70% in 2022. In 2022 women constituted 72.5% of the sample, and the mean age was 22.69±5.672 years. Students find computer presentations helpful in understanding the material, there was a statistically significant difference in the answers to the same question in 2019. Most of the respondents (35.1% in 2022 and 39.9% in 2019) prefer e-course and face-to-face teaching simultaneously or content organized only in an e-learning system (41.5% in 2022 and 48.8% in 2019), with no statistically significant difference. Students prefer paper tests – 46.4% in 2022 and 49.2% in 2019, no statistically significant difference was found. We did not find a statistically significant change in the way students would like to communicate with the teacher – most of them point out the electronic channel (71.4% in 2022 and 75.9% in 2019). Regarding assignments, opinions are divided – almost half of the respondents prefer to submit assignments in person, the others – online. This attitude did not change with distance learning during the pandemic.

It stems from the results that the surveyed healthcare students learning from a distance in a pandemic situation have a similar attitude to the technologies used in teaching compared to the students, who studied in healthcare majors at the Medical University – Plovdiv. In 2022, the students find computer presentations of educational content more helpful. This can be explained by the variety of software used for teaching in the virtual learning environments during the lockdowns. Students who took exams via e-testing preferred the paper test, as did students with little e-testing experience before the pandemic. In 2022, the respondents do not share that the possibilities of cheating are greater with the electronic test. Attitudes towards communication with a teacher also remain sustainable over time.

Keywords:

Learning, technologies, attitudes, healthcare students.