PHYSIOTHERAPY STUDENTS’ PERCEIVED SATISFACTION, BEHAVIORAL INTENTION, AND EFFECTIVENESS OF EMERGENCY REMOTE LEARNING DURING COVID-19

V. Raigangar¹, I. Mustafa¹

Background: Higher education worldwide, and in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) was challenged by the COVID-19 pandemic.For the safety of faculty,staff and students,from early March 2020, theory,practical and clinical courses were conducted via electronic learning (e-learning).E-learning was done synchronously or asynchronously via blackboard collaborate ultra, a learning management system.E-learning success depends on accessibility, use of appropriate methods to design course contents and assessments combined with well planned delivery. However, emergency remote learning was a novel experience for both  faculty and students. Assessing students perceived satisfaction, behavioral intention and effectiveness during emergency remote learning may provide valuable insights for designing future online learning initiatives.

Purpose: To investigate perceived satisfaction, behavioral intention, effectiveness of emergency remote teaching during COVID-19 at the University of Sharjah.

Methods: Following ethical approval from the University of Sharjah, Research ethics committee and informed online consent, this cross-sectional study was conducted. Physiotherapy students from all levels of the  program filled a validated online questionnaire evaluating e-learning across seven domains: perceived self-efficacy perceived satisfaction, perceived usefulness, behavioral intention, system quality, effectiveness of method, and multimedia instruction using a seven point Likert-type scale. In addition, demographic information was also collected. Data was analyzed using SPSS ver. 21 and descriptive statistics were used.

Results: A total of 90 females (85.7%) and 15 males (14.3%)  completed the survey. Ninety-five (82.6%) students described excellent previous experience with using the internet, with only 45 (39.1%) having done e-learning earlier. Over 80% of students were confident in using blackboard, its functions, and tools. However, only 58 (50.4%) of students were satisfied  using e-learning as a tool to assist their self-learning and did not intend to continue using e-learning as an autonomous tool. 77% of students were overall satisfied with e-learning and found it useful, but 62 (53.9%) indicated that e-learning did not facilitate learner-learner interaction, nor assist learning performance or motivation. Furthermore, over 82% of students favored the use of multimedia instruction (both audio and video) to enhance learning. In relation to cognitive overload and mental effort 77 (66.9%) perceived average to high mental effort during e-learning.

Conclusion(s): Majority of physiotherapy students perceived high self-efficacy, satisfaction, and usefulness of remote online learning, however, did not intend to use e-learning as an autonomous tool. E-learning neither facilitated interaction with others nor motivated them academically. High mental effort was also required and students favored the use of multimedia instruction. Universities should consider these factors while designing e-learning and use break out groups and other online activities to enhance interaction and incorporate multimedia instruction during their classes. Also, it is important to provide breaks in between online classes with spaced out assignments similar to the time given to change physical classrooms during face to face classes to decrease the cognitive overload.

Implications: While e-learning has established benefits of increased convenience with reduced costs and travel times, there are also limitations of internet access and connectivity, learner interaction and self-learning. These can be addressed by effective design of courses and use of hybrid learning with a mixture of online learning and face to face classes.

Funding, acknowledgements: No funding was granted for this study.

Keywords: COVID-19, e-learning, remote learning

Topic: COVID-19

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: University of Sharjah

Committee: University of Sharjah, Research Ethics Committee

Ethics number: REC-20-06-14-02-F