What do medical students want to learn in the Corona Crisis Curriculum? Expressing Students' Expectations and Strategies

With the outbreak of new coronavirus disease, various aspects of human life have been affected. Medical students who are to serve as health care professionals in the not-so-far future are in dire need of adequate-quality education. Social distancing has transformed the teaching method of a large part of these studentschr('39') courses to a virtual way. To ensure the appropriate quality of education in the pandemic course, it is important to accurately determine the challenges and needs of medical students, which was studied qualitatively in this study.

This is a qualitative-analytical study that was conducted on students of Jahrom University of Medical Sciences with the aim of examining studentschr('39') perceptions and requests of different dimensions of virtual education. After collecting information of students of different fields by open-ended question and answer in Navid system and social networks (WhatsApp), the results were qualitatively analyzed.

In the present study, 550 students of different fields of medical sciences participated in groups and stages. From the analysis of the obtained data, 5 different sections were identified. In the dimension study of the benefits expressed by the students, 11 cases were identified with the general theme of satisfaction with the easy access to the content. In the study of the disadvantages expressed by students, 19 cases were mentioned, which were often related to problems due to lack of technology infrastructure and volume of content or lack of studentschr('39') time. Studentschr('39') demand for quality improvement of educational content had 20 different requests that identified the needs and challenges of students. Studentschr('39') learning styles during the quarantine period also had 8 cases in which the diversity seen in its items shows the need to customize education based on the studentchr('39')s learning style. Examination of the psychological dimensions experienced in education in the corona course led to the identification of 8 negative dimensions and 6 positive dimensions.

The present study helped students at Jahrom University of  Medical Sciences by identifying the strengths and challenges of e-learning during the corona virus pandemic.