Integrated virtual teaching, learning and testing in histology: A student’s perspective

The Epidemic Act invoked during COVID-19 pandemic restricted the use of traditional methods of face-to-face teaching and learning and entailed a drastic transition of teaching histology by the time-tested traditional mode in the laboratory to that on a virtual platform. Implementation of this virtual platform as the teaching methodology in histology which evolved as a result of the pandemic can now be continued as an important new teaching-learning modality even after COVID-19 restrictions have been lifted. Hence, this article explores the effect of the use of appropriate technology on students for teaching and learning.

The study undertaken at Department of Anatomy, Goa Medical College employed a non-interventional (cross-sectional) design. First year medical students participating in the online histology sessions were subjects in this study (n=144).  The data collected comprised of perceptions regarding the new teaching-learning study tool which were recorded as a self-administered questionnaire imparted to them through a Google form. The responses were analyzed using chi-square test and p-values were obtained using SPSS.

Results indicated that virtual teaching provided the students with accessibility, flexibility, additional data and better retention of concepts. But the students ultimately were of the opinion that virtual teaching followed by laboratory teaching was the most preferred approach to learning. This preference of the integrated approach used in this study as compared to traditional classroom teaching was confirmed and found to be statistically significant as the p-value = 0.001< 0.05.

While the study aims to evaluate the efficacy of the newly implemented integrated method as a preferred tool in current day teaching-learning versus the traditional teaching method, it also highlights the potential grey areas faced by the students using this virtual learning environment.