Effects of realistic e-learning cases on students’ learning motivation during COVID-19
Background Keeping up motivation to learn when socially isolated during a pandemic can be challenging. In medical schools, the COVID-19 pandemic required a complete switch to e-learning without any direct patient contact despite early reports showing that medical students preferred face-to-face teac...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article (Journal) |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
April 21, 2021
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| In: |
PLOS ONE
Year: 2021, Volume: 16, Issue: 4, Pages: 1-13 |
| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0249425 |
| Online Access: | Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249425 Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249425 
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| Author Notes: | Ann-Kathrin Rahm, Maximilian Töllner, Max Ole Hubert, Katrin Klein, Cyrill Wehling, Tim Sauer, Hannah Mai Hennemann, Selina Hein, Zoltan Kender, Janine Günther, Petra Wagenlechner, Till Johannes Bugaj, Sophia Boldt, Christoph Nikendei, Jobst-Hendrik Schultz |
| Summary: | Background Keeping up motivation to learn when socially isolated during a pandemic can be challenging. In medical schools, the COVID-19 pandemic required a complete switch to e-learning without any direct patient contact despite early reports showing that medical students preferred face-to-face teaching in clinical setting. We designed close to real-life patient e-learning modules to transmit competency-based learning contents to medical students and evaluated their responses about their experience. Methods Weekly e-learning cases covering a 10-week leading symptom-based curriculum were designed by a team of medical students and physicians. The internal medicine curriculum (HeiCuMed) at the Heidelberg University Medical School is a mandatory part of clinical medical education in the 6th or 7th semester. Case-design was based on routine patient encounters and covered different clinical settings: preclinical emergency medicine, in-patient and out-patient care and follow-up. Individual cases were evaluated online immediately after finishing the respective case. The whole module was assessed at the end of the semester. Free-text answers were analyzed with MaxQDa following Mayring`s principles of qualitative content analyses. Results N = 198 students (57.6% female, 42.4% male) participated and 1252 individual case evaluations (between 49.5% and 82.5% per case) and 51 end-of-term evaluations (25.8% of students) were collected. Students highly appreciated the offer to apply their clinical knowledge in presented patient cases. Aspects of clinical context, interactivity, game-like interface and embedded learning opportunities of the cases motivated students to engage with the asynchronously presented learning materials and work through the cases. Conclusions Solving and interpreting e-learning cases close to real-life settings promoted students’ motivation during the COVID-19 pandemic and may partially have compensated for missing bedside teaching opportunities. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 15.06.2021 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 1932-6203 |
| DOI: | 10.1371/journal.pone.0249425 |