The Viability of Blended Model in Undergraduate Medical Education in COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: With the new era of life threatening variants of Covid-19 the medical and dental education has been greatly compromised. Every school/college has to shift their educational setup to Blended model. Blended model can also be called as hybrid approach of learning or mixed mode of learning. It is an "insightful combination of Face to Face and Online opportunities for growth”. Objective: The aim of this study is to measure the viability of Blended Model through series of assessments by measuring the retention of the content after the teaching session in online and in face to face settings in Knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention test. Material & Method Methodology: This was a Quantitative Experimental study which was conducted in the Fatima Memorial college of Medicine and Dentistry Lahore. The participants were 66 of final year BDS students who voluntarily participated in the research project. Results: A total of 96 students participated in the study and it was found a significant difference between the two intervention groups regarding the mean scores of Knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention test. The PowerPoint group showed lower grades in Knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention test in comparison with Prezi group. The learning performances was evaluated from immediate learning responses in Knowledge acquisition and in long term learning retention in knowledge retention test showed that both the presentation software can be used as a presentation medium and students do learn from both but Prezi presentation software students are superior in learning performances from immediate learning to long term memory retention as compared to PowerPoint presentation software in online and in face to face settings. Conclusion: Blended model can help the medical teachers to teach the theoretical aspects of the curriculum via online and make easy schedules of student’s rotations for clinical clerkships. When it comes to clinical training, there is no shortcut or better way than face to face teaching strategy. Therefore blended learning is a viable method of teaching in this period of Covid-19. Keywords: Blended Model, Viability, Medical Education, Multimedia presentation, Covid-19