Abstract

Background: In early 2020, a global pandemic (COVID-19) broke out and severely affected the progress of education in various universities and institutions, which promoted the progress of online courses at the same time.

Aims and Objectives: To evaluate the perception toward online live teaching and traditional off-line teaching among medical college students and staff during the COVID pandemic.

Materials and Methods: Cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey among teachers and students was conducted at Subbaiah institute of medical sciences, Shivamogga between January and July 2021. This study was designed mainly to collect information on socio-demographic factors and participants’ perception at a given point in time to toward online and offline teaching during lockdown.

Results: A total of 27.7% of study participants had experienced COVID. Preferred mode of teaching during post-COVID phase on statistical analysis revealed that every strata of study population felt that offline classes are much better than online classes across multiple variables. Gender comparison across online and offline showed statistically significant results with P ≤ 0.05. Among COVID experienced individuals more than 80% felt that offline teaching was better than online in terms of better doubt clearance and P-value found to be statistically significant.

Conclusion: The findings of this study indicated that the majority of the participants didn’t show a positive attitude towards online learning and preferred well-structured traditional classes over online learning.

Key words: Pandemic; Online; Education; Students; Teachers