Academic Performance in Medical Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review

Several academic performance studies during the COVID-19 pandemic on education outside medicine showed varying results. This scoping review aims to identify research trends in medical education that focus on the academic performance of medical students during the COVID-19 pandemic to enable available research to be mapped and summarized, and gaps in research results can be identified.

The authors applied the Arksey and O'Malley framework to conduct the scoping review. This review was conducted from January to 30 May 2022. Comprehensive article searches were conducted on six databases (PubMed, ProQuest, EBSCOhost, ERIC, Science Direct, Google Scholar) using keywords of COVID-19, academic performance, academic achievement, medical education, and medical students.

A literature search identified 24 publications eligible for analysis. The cohort is the most chosen research design. The publications were only taken from three continents; those were from Asia, America, and Europe. Most of the publications came from the Asian continent, and most of the participants involved in the studies were undergraduates. Eleven out of 24 publications reported on the impact of research before and during the COVID-19 pandemic on academic performance. Six out of 11 studies showed differences in results. Three studies indicated that students achieved lower grades during the COVID-19 pandemic. In contrast, three other studies reported that students got higher grades during the COVID-19 pandemic. Twenty studies reported the influencing factors of the academic performance.

The literatures reported differences in medical students' academic performance before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Twelve variables affected medical students' academic performance during the COVID-19 pandemic.