Attitudes, Perceptions and Challenges Faced by Dental Teachers in Online Teaching

Abstract

Introduction: During the Covid 19 pandemic there was a shift to online teaching across medical and dental institutions. The objective of this study was to determine quantitatively attitudes, perceptions and challenges faced by dental faculty in online teaching.

Material and Methods: A questionnaire was designed by the authors whose content and face validity was carried out. Following approval from the Ethics Review Committee the questionnaire was distributed among 307 participants across dental institutes in Pakistan, and the data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 26.00.

Results: 32.25% participants were males and 62.25% were females. The mean age of participants was 36.3 years. Majority of the participants were confident in the use of computers for online delivery of lessons (75.9%) and were accustomed to the use of various required softwares (67.7%). 61.9% participants did not agree with the statement that they could teach better with distance education, whereas 50.5% participants considered flexible class times as a major advantage of online teaching. Teaching of skills was identified as the main challenge by 90.3% participants, followed by poor quality internet and increased time consumption in providing feedback for the assignments.

Conclusion: This study supports the use of online teaching for non-clinical, theoretical subjects provided that faculty training and high speed internet is made available by the teaching institutions.