Abstract:

Introduction:
The new world’s situation, where health measures had to be taken in order to face the COVID-19’s pandemic has altered the normal functioning and development of education. Physical Therapy is a degree that has a vast amount of credits based on practical skills, and because face-to-face teaching and assessment is necessarily suspended, new methods have to be developed to overcome this issue. Online modalities have improved teaching, but there is a lack of development of new methods to assure correct distance assessment.

Objective:
The aim of this study was to develop a new method in order to assess theoretical knowledge in Physical Therapy students on their second of four-year degree. The method looks to overcome circumstances generated from the pandemic were face-to-face examinations are no longer possible because of the applied restrictions.

Materials and method:
The subject Pathology and Therapeutic Approach of the Cardiovascular and Respiratory Systems is a 6 ECTS credit basic formation given in the second year of the Degree in Physical Therapy. Students are taught the clinical presentation, diagnosis, and initial treatment of different pathologies we can have in the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. Classically the was to assess this knowledge was through a multiple answer test students had to take face-to-face.

Ensuring students are assessed as objectively as possible and giving them conditions similar to those they had before the pandemic, there is a need to develop a method in order to enable them to take their examination from home.
The online appliance “Aula Virtual” was developed in order to facilitate student-teacher communication and content sharing, but the true potential was not fully explored regarding examination matters. The Universitat de Valencia tech department developed a new tool in this appliance in order to create exams and adjust different conditions in order to recreate face-to-face circumstances. Initial starting time, time limits and ability to pre-mark the answer were some of the modified characteristics that were applied in this exams.

Teachers feared the possible problems that could arise, such as losing the internet signal while on the exam or students cheating and copying from other fellow classmates, so these matters were taken under consideration when analyzing final results.

Results:
Results were very positive. Students performed their online examinations and no formal complaints were received at any time. Teachers assessed the possible complication that might had occur but no relevant issues were found. Therefore, based on the experience, online theoretical examination is feasible in order to overcome the pandemic circumstance.

Keywords:

Covid-19, assessment method, respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease.