S. Ghaben1, S. Albarawi1
1Al-Azhar University-Gaza, Physiotherapy Department, Gaza, Palestine
Background: The 3 universities providing physiotherapy education in Gaza were enforced to launch online-learning system due to lockdown imposed because of COVID-19 in March 2020. The online-learning was launched under the regulations of Ministry of Higher Education and applied according to universities’ capabilities. This was despite having variable experience among universities with overall somehow little. Both educators and learners were unprepared and untrained for the new system. This compulsory situation impacted physiotherapy education system significantly. Thus, it is reasonable to explore the experience and find ways to improve.
Purpose: To explore the physiotherapy online-learning experience during COVID19 from both educators’ and learners’ perspectives with a view to enhance the future experience.
Methods: Quantitative & qualitative study was conducted; 2 web-based surveys for educators and learners were posted & distributed among participants who were targeted conveniently. The surveys investigated their online-learning experience; technical support, delivery, effectiveness, concerns and suggestions for a better future. Part of the surveys were open questions.
Results:
- 14 educators and 50 students responded to the surveys. The three universities adopted Moodle as official online-learning system using prerecorded videos. Beside interactive platforms, social media, & emails were utilized.
- According to educators’, the top 3 challenges of online-learning were: student access to platform, difficulties of managing platform, and online learning provision process. For learners, the top 3 challenges were poor internet connection, electricity cut, and lack of communications with educators.
- Both educators & learners scored same top 5 “Physiotherapy skills”, which were hard to be delivered through online-learning. These skills were examination skills, physical awareness skills, communication skills, treatment skills, and clinical reasoning skills.
- Clinical & practical courses were postponed to summer semester in 3 universities, and (8\14) of educators covered less than 75% of learning material due to inability to cope with the situation, lack of communication, and time.
- Educators implied that the 3 universities were unable to accomplish graduation researches due to inability to communicate effectively with stakeholders (11\14), inability to complete data gathering (10\14), and inability to ensure adequate supervision (9\14). The alternatives for research were writing review papers & literature review (10\14), finding other learning activities (8\14).
- Learners scored 2.16 online-learning effectiveness out of 1-5 scoring system, 5 indicates most effectiveness. Learners overall experience was described very good by 8% of them, good 40%, fair 22%, and poor by 30%.
- Satisfaction with technical support provided by universities was scored 3.71 by educators, and 2.08 by learners in 1-5 scoring system.
Conclusion(s):
- The lockdown impacted the learning system and enforced universities to transform to online-learning without adequate infrastructure, awareness & training, which adversely impacted the physiotherapy education system.
- For educators & learners, major challenges of online-learning were: lack of communication & poor digital skills & inadequate resources.
- Recommendations to maintain physiotherapy education during crisis were: utilizing interactive platform to enhance communication & implementing of infection control strategies during practical sessions.
Implications: Now & then, online-learning would become an integral part of physiotherapy education system; thus, policies to enhance its effectiveness would be adopted.
Funding, acknowledgements: NA
Keywords: Physiotherapy, online-learning, COVID19
Topic: Education
Did this work require ethics approval? Yes
Institution: Ethical approval from Al-Azhar University-Gaza
Committee: Deanship of Scientific Research- Al-Azhar University-Gaza
Ethics number: NA
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
