Online education for prosthetics and orthotics students in the era of COVID-19 pandemic in Iran: challenges, opportunities, and recommendations

INTRODUCTION: With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, many higher education programs in Iran, including prosthetics and orthotics (P&O), had to shift to the online environment all at once. This unanticipated transition was challenging for the educational system. However, online education is superior in some aspects to conventional methods, and this situation may offer opportunities. This study was carried out from September 2021 to March 2022 to investigate the challenges and opportunities of online education in the P&O sector in Iran based on the opinions of students and faculty members. Relevant recommendations will also be discussed. METHODS: In this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were conducted in both oral and written formats. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to recruit undergraduate and postgraduate P&O students, as well as P&O faculty members, for this qualitative study. The data gathered from interviews with study participants were analyzed by thematic analysis. RESULTS: Based on the data analysis, many sub-themes of the three main themes were recognized: (1) challenges: technical, socioeconomic, environmental distractors, supervision and evaluation, workload, digital competence, interactions, motivation, sessions-related issues, class time, hands-on and clinical training; (2) opportunities: technological innovations, infrastructure development, flexible learning environment, student-centered learning, availability of contents, time and cost saving, high concentration, more self-confidence; (3) recommendations: technical infrastructure, team dynamics, hybrid courses, time management, awareness. CONCLUSION: Online education of P&O during the era of the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by a series of challenges. Technical issues and the gravity of hands-on training in this field were significant challenges. This era, however, provided the opportunity to facilitate the establishment of needed infrastructure and support technological innovations for online education. Considering hybrid (mixed online and on-site) courses was recommended to improve the quality of learning.