A Survey of Medical Students' Opinions on the Quality of Virtual Education Courses Held in Bushehr University of Medical Sciences during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: Evaluation is necessary to reform and advance activities. The main purpose of the evaluation of education in universities is to improve the training programs and activities of faculty members. This study aimed to investigate the opinions of medical students about the quality of virtual education courses held during the COVID-19 period. Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was performed at Bushehr University of Medical Sciences in 2020. Conesus sampling was used to select medical students. Data collection was carried out using baseline characteristics and a valid 13-item questionnaire. Medical students were asked to rate the items based on a five-point Likert scale. Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 16.0. Results: Ninety medical students participated in this study. Of the participants, 57.8% were women and 11.1% were married. Findings showed that 84.5% of students agreed to have virtual education courses and 57.7% of students expressed satisfaction with the quality of virtual education. The results also showed that 84.5% of students expressed dissatisfaction with the occurrence of technical and infrastructural problems during online education sections, and 70% of students expressed dissatisfaction with unresponsiveness to their homework activities. There was a statistically significant relationship between satisfaction with virtual education and the gender of students (P <0.05). Conclusion: A total of84.5% of students agreed with holding virtual education sections, and more than half were satisfied with the quality of virtual education. Two-third of the students were dissatisfied with the occurrence of technical and infrastructural problems during online sections, as well as not responding to students' homework and questions on time.

A Survey of Medical Students' Opinions on the Quality of Virtual Education Courses Held in Bushehr University of Medical Sciences during the COVID-19 Pandemic Keywords:

COVID-19 , Medical students , Virtual Education , Quality