This study designed to evaluate the views of medical students about e-learning during the coronavirus pandemic in Iran. The results of this study showed that the mean of five subscales of effective e-learning, including quality of content, effective interaction, supporting systems, the management of virtual classes and management of the motivations was in the medium range. Although many universities in the world started to use platforms such as Zoom for online education, that made the interaction between students and teacher easier [8], the majority of medical universities in Iran relied on virtual education using a website called NAVID that was not feasible for mutual interaction. In NAVID system teachers were able to record their voice on slides and put those slides on the website. Teachers could put some assignments in the system and were able to respond the questions of students in the specified place. Because before the pandemic of coronavirus, e-learning was not popular in medical universities in Iran, students and educational system needed time to coping with e-learning.
Our results indicated that the support system and management were significantly rated more by female students in comparison to male students. Also, the scores of five subscales of e-learning were significantly reported more by married participants in comparison to single participants.
The scores of quality of content, effective interaction, and management of virtual classes were significantly higher in the participants from medical school in comparison to other faculties.
Also, MD students scored all five subscales of e-learning significantly more in comparison to the PhD, master and bachelor degree’s students.
Our results indicated that, participants with moderate computer skill got more score in all five subscales of e-learning in comparison to the low and high computer skills. A study by Link et al on medical students of Vienna showed that only small percentages of medical students had low computer skill, and 12% of medical students did not use e-learning materials [9]. The results of Link et al’s study revealed that most universities in developing countries started e-learning before pandemic of coronavirus. O'Doherty et al in their study found that one of the barriers of e-learning is the lack of sufficient technical skill [10], that is similar to our study.
Our results indicated that participants with high-speed internet and very good access got significantly higher scores from all five sub-scales of e-learning. A qualitative study by Shafiei Sarvestani et al showed that low speed of internet, lack of interaction with professors and classmates, and lack of time were important challenges in using e-learning in Iranian medical students [11]. Although high cost of internet was not a challenge for e-learning from the prospective of Iranian medical students, Demuyakor found that participating in online learning need high cost and this may not affordable for some students [12].
The results of the current study showed that age had a reverse significant relationship with effective interaction. Also, the grade of last semester had a positive correlation with quality of content. A study by Corell et al showed that using competitive tool, could enhance the e-learning of medical students [13].
Our results showed that the number of subjects had a reverse significant correlation with effective interaction, supporting systems and management of an e-learning system. Time had a reverse correlation with quality of content, and positive correlation with management of virtual system and management of motivation. Lack of time was mentioned as an obstacle for e-learning in previous study [11].
Limitations of the study
We relied on responses of participants and it may affect by recall bias. The number of participants from different national regions was not equal and it may affect the generalizability of the results.