Evaluating e-Learning in the Pathology Course During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Purpose: Synchronous and asynchronous e-learning is a promising and effective educational method for the delivery of medical lessons. Due to the public health measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, our Pathology Department faced the challenge of a total online transition of the lessons. Therefore, the aim is to evaluate the aspects of the applied e-learning method they received. Materials and Methods: At the end of the semester when e-learning was applied, we designed a structured questionnaire consisting of 17 items via Google Forms, which took the students between 5 and 7 minutes to complete. Of the 257 students registered on the Pathology course in the fifth semester, 207 students (80.5%) returned completed valid questionnaires. Results: Fifteen of the seventeen components of the e-learning Pathology questionnaire were evaluated highly by the vast majority of the students. The two remaining items, the HIPON platform and the Microlabs e-lessons, were evaluated highly by almost half the students. Approximately 93% of medical students answered that e-learning could be integrated with real class lessons in the medical curriculum: 62.8% (N = 130) of students answered to a great extent, and 30.4% (N = 63) answered to a small extent. Statistically significant differences were found between the demographic characteristics of the participants (gender, permanent residence, working status) and their evaluation of the e-learning items. Conclusion: E-learning was successfully implemented for the delivery of the pathology lessons and was widely accepted by the students, providing evidence for its future integration into the medical curriculum. Our findings illuminate various aspects of the students' experience with e-learning, and we strongly recommend that the students' evaluation and perspective be taken into consideration by the faculty in the development of policies for higher-quality medical education.