Opinions of Students in the Field of Health on Distance Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Objective:It is important to determine the opinions and preferences of students about distance education as its use is becoming more and more prevalent because of the Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic. It was aimed to determine the opinions of students in the field of health about distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods:This was a cross-sectional, descriptive study which was conducted at the Faculty of Health Sciences of a foundation university in İstanbul. The data were obtained from 476 students who were studying at the Faculty of Health Sciences of a university between June and July 2021, using a Student Information Form and Student Opinions on Distance Education Survey.Results:When asked their opinions on distance education, most described that face-to-face education was more useful than distance education (65.1%) and that having practical lessons with distance education negatively affected their learning (61.1%). Conversely, most of the students expressed that they could listen to the parts of the lessons they did not understand again (93.1%), could listen to the lessons they missed (90.3%), and that distance education provided them with the convenience of taking lessons wherever internet access was available (76.7%).Conclusion:The results indicated that students did not have considerable problems during distance education, they benefited from the advantages of distance education and were generally satisfied with it. In relation to the problems experienced during the pandemic, we recommend to take measures especially for applied lessons, to continue to benefit from the advantages of distance education by combining it with formal education in appropriate lessons, and to make necessary improvements by evaluating the opinions of students on a departmental basis.

Keywords

• covid-19
• distance education
• satisfaction
• students