Date of Completion

2024

Document Type

Community Medicine

Degree Name

Doctor of Medicine

Keywords

COVID-19, education system, blended learning

Abstract

The recent COVID-19 pandemic left cracks in a multitude of endeavors across different building blocks of the community. Of note, the education system was one of the sectors that greatly suffered amidst the changing times. Consequently, major shifts on different learning modalities were observed, including transition from traditional in-class learning into hybrid-setup blended learning. In this study, a retrospective cohort design was used to compare the academic performances of DLSMHSI 3rd year medical students from the year 2022 to 2024 in which these major shifts of learning modalities occurred. Two cohorts were derived: the Batch 2024 exposed to blended learning (BLG), and Batch 2025 that underwent the traditional face-to-face course delivery (TLG). Criteria for inclusion of the target study population included officially enrolled, qualified, regular and irregular YL3 medical students. Participants beyond these criteria were considered as ineligible, including absentees and those with academic deficiencies. Further, the learning outcomes from these batches were based on their modular evaluation exam scores during their Gastrointestinal System (GIT) Module. The students’ satisfaction was derived from the end-of-module feedback previously answered by each batch through the Moodle course site, conducted by the College of Medicine and structured as a Likert scale. Items of feedback included (1) quality of modular contents (2) experiences on asynchronous and synchronous sessions, (3) experiences of online or in-class examinations. All these data were retrieved from the Office of the Vice Dean upon the approval of the Ethics Committee. Statistical treatments were conducted in consideration of the normal distribution of the gathered data sets. Independent samples t-test manifested a significant difference in the average scores, between the TLG and BLG, on the Surgery part (F > 0.05; t = 3.34; p < 0.05) and Internal Medicine part (F > 0.05; t = 3.34; p < 0.05) of the GI evaluation exam. In contrast, no significant difference was observed from the Rehab Medicine scores (F > 0.05; t =1.9649; p > 0.05). In testing of association, BLG was assigned as the exposed group, while TLG was designated as the unexposed group. Relative risk of failing (RR) suggests that students exposed to blended learning modality are more likely to fail the Surgery part (RR = 1.40) and IM part (RR = 1.74), than their TLG counterparts. Oppositely, no association was observed on the Rehab Medicine evaluation scores as the BLG and TLG had a virtually identical fail rate (RR = 0.987). These findings were consistent with the feedback and overall satisfaction in terms of mean Likert Scale Rating (LSR) observed from the cohorts, wherein the TLG had given a higher mean LSR than the BLG. This statistically reflects that the TLG had a better experience and perception on the quality of contents, synchronous and asynchronous sessions, and fairness of examinations. Common themes from BLG students’ additional insights also pose a potential explanation concerning the lower scores and likelihood of failure, which included: (1) disjointed contents, (2) technical difficulties, (3) redundancy of lectures, and (4) time constraints & compressed workload. Oppositely, common themes of TLG students’ additional insights also highlighted (1) technical difficulties, (2) underutilized course site, and (3) time constraints & compressed workload; however, an overall better perception and feedback was observed in terms of objective setting and real-time guidance from facilitators. In synthesis, this observational study highlighted the association between learning modality and likelihood of failing, limited to the context of the GIT module of third year medical students from S.Y. 2022 to 2024 and the corresponding archival records of their GIT module evaluation exam and end-of-module feedback.

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