Medical Students' Perspectives on Physical, Online, and Hybrid Learning Modalities: A Mixed Methods Study From a Medical School in Mauritius.

introductionMedical schools were not immune to the difficulties posed by the COVID pandemic. Educational institutions were shut down. By April 2020, 73.8% of registered students in 186 countries were adversely affected. The circumstances forced academic institutions to transition to emergency online teaching, despite the controversies of the effectiveness of this method. The absence of face-to-face teaching greatly impacted the clinical placements and affected the physical and practical skills training of many institutions.

objectiveThere is a dearth of data showing how medical students perceive blended learning. As far as the authors are aware, no study has ever addressed the experience of medical students regarding blended, online, and physical teaching in Mauritius. Therefore, the objective of the research is to address the challenges they faced and provide suggestions to tackle the drawbacks and help the betterment of the style of teaching with enhanced academic performance. A qualitative and quantitative assessment of the students' experience of these three methods was conducted.

methodsA mixed methods study, incorporating both qualitative and quantitative data, was conducted at Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam Medical College, Mauritius, to understand medical students' perceptions of online, hybrid, and physical teaching. Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS, version 29; IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, Armonk, NY) was used for quantitative data analysis, whereas NVivo 12 Plus software was used for qualitative data analysis.

resultsOut of 700 participants, 568 medical students participated in the study for quantitative data synthesis, resulting in an overall response rate of 81.14% (568). A total of 224 (69.1%) female students preferred a mixture of online and in-person lectures, followed by didactic lectures (100, 30.9%) and online (0, 0%). Among all male students, 160 (65.6%) preferred a mixture of online and in-person lectures, didactic lectures (68, 27.5%), and online lectures (16, 6.6%) (p<0.05). Webex was the most popular online video conferencing application utilized for the lectures, which was preferred by 248 (76.5%) female students, followed by Zoom (52, 16%), Google Meet (20, 6.2%), and Microsoft Teams (4, 1.2%). Regarding male students, 200 (82%) students preferred Webex, Zoom (32, 13.1%), Microsoft Teams (8, 3.3%), and Google Meet (4, 1.6%), which was statistically significant (p<0.05). A total of 144 (77.8%) Mauritian students, 34 (73.9%) South Africans, and 206 (61.7%) Indian students preferred a mixture of online and in-person lectures (p<0.05). A descriptive phenomenological qualitative data analysis generated three themes from the codes were as follows: online learning system, physical learning system, and blended learning system. Each theme had three different categories - emotional, academic, and related variables. Under each category, related codes were organized.

conclusionThe novelty of this study is evident, and its practical implications stretch far beyond the lockdown and COVID-19, but its findings, particularly surrounding the reduction in the loss of class times during tropical storms and hurricanes, are invaluable. The hybrid model of teaching caters to a wider audience of students and helps create a balanced mental and physical educational experience, resulting in the best outcome for students in their studies by capitalizing on the advantages of both didactic and online lectures.