Digital teaching and assessment of psychomotor skills of the clinical head and neck examination during COVID-19 pandemic

[How much digitization do ENT curricula need? : Opportunities and limits from the perspective of students and teachers]

BACKGROUND

Digitalization has long been an integral part of students' everyday lives and increasingly also of their medical training. It seems to be an unwritten law that "digital natives" want as much digitalization as possible. This study aims to shed more light on how students in the clinical phase of medical studies perceive the increasing digitalization of teaching and what they need for good education.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This study analyzed two surveys that were conducted using an online questionnaire. On the one hand, students in the 5th-9th semesters of the medical faculty at the University of Hamburg (n = 282) were surveyed (survey 1). Another survey addressed all employees of ENT clinics in Germany (n = 175; survey 2).

RESULTS

A total of 76 students took part in survey 1 and 123 lecturers in survey 2. The results show that both students and lecturers do not want face-to-face teaching to be completely replaced by digital formats. A total of 72.7% of students reject the possibility of teaching practical skills through digital formats. The majority of students surveyed stated that offline formats improve their concentration (61.1%), participation probability (63.9%), and motivation to learn (76.6%). In contrast, 40.2% of lecturers see digitalization as a way to reduce the workload without any relevant loss in teaching quality.

CONCLUSION

Digital teaching formats have a negative impact on the medical education of the students surveyed. Interaction and physical presence are needed to increase the motivation to learn. This leads to the first conclusion that students are critical of the increasing digitalization of medical studies.

Enhancing Nurses' Disaster Management and Preparedness: Evaluating the Effectiveness of an Online Educational Program Through a Quasi-Experimental Study

Background

Disaster management is an ongoing international concern, and nurses play essential roles in minimizing negative impacts on the health of communities. However, many nurses have limited knowledge and skills on how to respond to disasters effectively. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of a newly developed educational program on improving nurses' disaster management and preparedness.

Methods and Design

A quasi-experimental study was conducted on 88 nurses working at a public hospital. The educational program included six modules covering various aspects of disaster management. Pre-and post-tests were administered to evaluate changes in perceptions of disaster management competencies. Independent sample t-test, Pearson coefficient correlation, and One-way ANOVA tests were all run using SPSS.

Results

A significant proportion of nurses (78.4%) reported ongoing training in disaster management, while a smaller percentage (21.6%) expressed a contrary opinion. Nurses also had a moderate level of agreement with the disaster preparedness program (Pretest: 2.26 ± 0.34; post-test: 2.29 ± 0.31). Further, the results showed small improvements in nursing perceptions of the operational plan after the educational program (Pretest: M=2.76, SD=0.63; Post-test: M=2.89, SD=0.44), although the differences between pre-and-post assessments were not significant (P > 0.05). The mean values for overall familiarity in the pre-test were 3.16 ± 1.39, while in the post-test, they slightly increased to 3.26 ± 1.18. The findings also showed no statistically significant differences reported in nurses' attitudes and familiarity towards disaster preparedness based on the gender, marital status, nationality, working shifts, and working hours variables (P > 0.05).

Conclusion

This study demonstrated the significance of providing nurses with the essential knowledge that helps respond to disasters. Online educational programs can help improve nurses' preparedness to better manage disasters. Future research should investigate additional variables that could enhance nurses' knowledge and skills related to disaster response.