Abstract:

Although the impact of COVID-19 pandemic in public health and economy has been extensively discussed, it has been stated that education and formation of new qualified professionals has also been severely affected by this fact [1, 2]. The absence of presential activities during the lockdown was detrimental for subjects and courses of practical nature, as the methodologies and the objectives had to be rebuilt [3,4]. Although pandemic took place three years ago, it is nowadays when the effects of an unprecedented education are being revealed in students that attended non-face-to-face lectures of “Basic Operations in a Chemistry Lab”, a practical subject where students of the Degree in Pharmacy are supposed to learn the bases of how to correctly work in a lab, security rules, how to use proper materials, comprehend the foundations of chemical and physical operations, among others. This subject is placed in the first year of the Degree in Pharmacy, and it is used as the point of departure for the upcoming practical lessons in the following courses. A survey study has been carried out, where respondents who had attended this subject, both classroom and non-classroom methodologies, answered questions about the skills they were supposed to have developed in this subject. The collected answers were analysed in order to stablish if a non-classroom methodology has definitively affected the development of laboratory-related skills in future professionals.

References:
[1] L. Narayanan et al., "Impact of lockdown due to COVID-19 outbreak: lifestyle changes and public health concerns in India," 2020, doi: https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202006.0129.v1.
[2] S. Rashid and S. S. Yadav, "Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Higher Education and Research," Indian Journal of Human Development, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 340-343, 2020/08/01 2020, doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/0973703020946700.
[3] A. Alqurshi, "Investigating the impact of COVID-19 lockdown on pharmaceutical education in Saudi Arabia – A call for a remote teaching contingency strategy," Saudi Pharmaceutical Journal, vol. 28, no. 9, pp. 1075-1083, 2020/09/01/ 2020, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsps.2020.07.008.
[4] A. Mahdy-Mohamed, “The Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Academic Performance of Veterinary Medical Students” Frontiers in Veterinary Science, vol. 7, 2020, doi: 10.3389/fvets.2020.594261.

Keywords:

COVID-19 impact, Chemistry Laboratory, on-line learning, practical lessons, lockdown.