Online Teaching and Academic Performance among Medical Students during Covid-19 Pandemic

Nearly every sector in the world was impacted by Covid-19, including the higher education and medical education systems. Distance learning is a recent development in Bangladeshi medical education. It is still unknown how online learning affects academic performance. This study aimed at assessing the association between online teaching and academic performance of medical students during Covid-19 pandemic. This cross-sectional descriptive type of observational study was carried out at Dhaka National Medical College and Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College in the city of Dhaka and involved 202 4th-year medical students of both sexes. Purposive sampling was used to take samples. With the aid of a semi-structured questionnaire and a checklist, data were gathered via in-person interviews and record reviews, respectively. The study's results were displayed in tables and graphs as percentages, frequencies, and frequency distributions for categorical variables, along with means and standard deviations for continuous variables. Fisher's Exact test and the Chi square test were both used to evaluate associations between categorical variables. Among 202 students, with mean ±SD age of 23.04±0.969 years, 54.00% were female. Majority (78.70%) of students resided in urban areas that had monthly family income between TK.15000-TK.50000. For online classes, 76.20% students used smart phones for Zoom platform (85.60%) with 4G service (74.3%). Students had difficulty in interacting with teachers (55.4%), had illness (42.60%), among which vast majority (59.30%) complained of headaches. A major portion of the students (56.9%) felt that studies were hampered by the pandemic and thus suffered from mental pressure (63.9%) resulting in 75.0-79.0% class attendance (54.50%). Item score was 6.0-6.9 out of 10 in 60.9% students and 94.10% passed the second professional examination. Mass online learning is a fresh idea made possible by the pandemic. Given that medical education is heavily practice-based, it is important to investigate how online teaching affects students' academic performance.