Faculty and Students’ Perceptions About Online Teaching Styles of Faculty in Large Group Lectures

Abstract

Introduction: An unprecedented disruption in medical education worldwide was caused due to the Covid 19 pandemic. Online teaching has become one of the primary forms of education. In this paper, we aimed to understand the faculty and students’ perceptions about the teaching styles adopted by the faculty during online large group teaching from two universities in the United Arab Emirates. Patients and Methods: This is a cross-sectional opinion survey-based study. A pre-validated teaching style inventory in higher education (TSIHE) questionnaire was emailed to the students and faculty involved in large group online learning and teaching activities during the lock-down period of the COVID 19 pandemic from two different medical Universities in the United Arab Emirates. A total of 423 students and 57 faculty participated in the study. Descriptive and Inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. Results: There was a significant difference between the faculty and students on the perception of faculty online teaching styles. The difference was significant in teacher-student interaction and teacher structuring styles. In contrast, faculty and students’ perceptions were comparable for decision-making negotiation and behavioral control teaching styles. Conclusion: The study found that there was a significant perception differences between the faculty and students on the faculty teaching style during online large group teaching. Importantly, faculty perceived that they were more emotionally attached and more flexible in teacher-student interaction and teaching structuring during online teaching than the student perceived.