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Online teaching in physiotherapy education during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a retrospective case-control study on students’ satisfaction and performance

BACKGROUND: During COVID-19 pandemic, physiotherapy lecturers faced the challenge of rapidly shifting from face-to-face to online education. This retrospective case-control study aims to compare students’ satisfaction and performances shown in an online course to a control group of students who unde...

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Autores principales: Rossettini, Giacomo, Geri, Tommaso, Turolla, Andrea, Viceconti, Antonello, Scumà, Cristina, Mirandola, Mattia, Dell’Isola, Andrea, Gianola, Silvia, Maselli, Filippo, Palese, Alvisa
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8403505/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34455979
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02896-1
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author Rossettini, Giacomo
Geri, Tommaso
Turolla, Andrea
Viceconti, Antonello
Scumà, Cristina
Mirandola, Mattia
Dell’Isola, Andrea
Gianola, Silvia
Maselli, Filippo
Palese, Alvisa
author_facet Rossettini, Giacomo
Geri, Tommaso
Turolla, Andrea
Viceconti, Antonello
Scumà, Cristina
Mirandola, Mattia
Dell’Isola, Andrea
Gianola, Silvia
Maselli, Filippo
Palese, Alvisa
author_sort Rossettini, Giacomo
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: During COVID-19 pandemic, physiotherapy lecturers faced the challenge of rapidly shifting from face-to-face to online education. This retrospective case-control study aims to compare students’ satisfaction and performances shown in an online course to a control group of students who underwent the same course delivered face-to-face in the previous five years. METHODS: Between March and April 2020, a class (n = 46) of entry-level physiotherapy students (University of Verona - Italy), trained by an experienced physiotherapist, had 24-hours online lessons. Students exposed to the same course in the previous five academic years (n = 112), delivered with face-to-face conventional lessons, served as a historical control. The course was organized in 3 sequential phases: (1) PowerPoint presentations were uploaded to the University online platform, (2) asynchronous video recorded lectures were provided on the same platform, and (3) between online lectures, the lecturer and students could communicate through an email chat to promote understanding, dispel any doubts and collect requests for supplementary material (e.g., scientific articles, videos, webinars, podcasts). Outcomes were: (1) satisfaction as routinely measured by University with a national instrument and populated in a database; (2) performance as measured with an oral examination. RESULTS: We compared satisfaction with the course, expressed on a 5-point Likert scale, resulting in no differences between online and face-to-face teaching (Kruskal-Wallis (2) = 0.24, df = 1, p = 0.62). We weighted up students’ results by comparing their mean performances with the mean performances of the same course delivered face-to-face in the previous five years, founding a statistical significance in favour of online teaching (Wilcoxon rank sum test W = 1665, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Online teaching in entry-level Physiotherapy seems to be a feasible option to face COVID-19 pandemic, as satisfies students as well as face-to-face courses and leading to a similar performance. Entry-level Bachelors in Physiotherapy may consider moving to eLearning to facilitate access to higher education. Universities will have to train lecturers to help them develop appropriate pedagogical skills, and supply suitable support in terms of economic, organizational, and technological issues, aimed at guaranteeing a high level of education to their students. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Retrospectively registered.
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spelling pubmed-84035052021-08-30 Online teaching in physiotherapy education during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a retrospective case-control study on students’ satisfaction and performance Rossettini, Giacomo Geri, Tommaso Turolla, Andrea Viceconti, Antonello Scumà, Cristina Mirandola, Mattia Dell’Isola, Andrea Gianola, Silvia Maselli, Filippo Palese, Alvisa BMC Med Educ Research BACKGROUND: During COVID-19 pandemic, physiotherapy lecturers faced the challenge of rapidly shifting from face-to-face to online education. This retrospective case-control study aims to compare students’ satisfaction and performances shown in an online course to a control group of students who underwent the same course delivered face-to-face in the previous five years. METHODS: Between March and April 2020, a class (n = 46) of entry-level physiotherapy students (University of Verona - Italy), trained by an experienced physiotherapist, had 24-hours online lessons. Students exposed to the same course in the previous five academic years (n = 112), delivered with face-to-face conventional lessons, served as a historical control. The course was organized in 3 sequential phases: (1) PowerPoint presentations were uploaded to the University online platform, (2) asynchronous video recorded lectures were provided on the same platform, and (3) between online lectures, the lecturer and students could communicate through an email chat to promote understanding, dispel any doubts and collect requests for supplementary material (e.g., scientific articles, videos, webinars, podcasts). Outcomes were: (1) satisfaction as routinely measured by University with a national instrument and populated in a database; (2) performance as measured with an oral examination. RESULTS: We compared satisfaction with the course, expressed on a 5-point Likert scale, resulting in no differences between online and face-to-face teaching (Kruskal-Wallis (2) = 0.24, df = 1, p = 0.62). We weighted up students’ results by comparing their mean performances with the mean performances of the same course delivered face-to-face in the previous five years, founding a statistical significance in favour of online teaching (Wilcoxon rank sum test W = 1665, p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Online teaching in entry-level Physiotherapy seems to be a feasible option to face COVID-19 pandemic, as satisfies students as well as face-to-face courses and leading to a similar performance. Entry-level Bachelors in Physiotherapy may consider moving to eLearning to facilitate access to higher education. Universities will have to train lecturers to help them develop appropriate pedagogical skills, and supply suitable support in terms of economic, organizational, and technological issues, aimed at guaranteeing a high level of education to their students. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Retrospectively registered. BioMed Central 2021-08-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8403505/ /pubmed/34455979 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02896-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Rossettini, Giacomo
Geri, Tommaso
Turolla, Andrea
Viceconti, Antonello
Scumà, Cristina
Mirandola, Mattia
Dell’Isola, Andrea
Gianola, Silvia
Maselli, Filippo
Palese, Alvisa
Online teaching in physiotherapy education during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a retrospective case-control study on students’ satisfaction and performance
title Online teaching in physiotherapy education during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a retrospective case-control study on students’ satisfaction and performance
title_full Online teaching in physiotherapy education during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a retrospective case-control study on students’ satisfaction and performance
title_fullStr Online teaching in physiotherapy education during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a retrospective case-control study on students’ satisfaction and performance
title_full_unstemmed Online teaching in physiotherapy education during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a retrospective case-control study on students’ satisfaction and performance
title_short Online teaching in physiotherapy education during COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a retrospective case-control study on students’ satisfaction and performance
title_sort online teaching in physiotherapy education during covid-19 pandemic in italy: a retrospective case-control study on students’ satisfaction and performance
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8403505/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34455979
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02896-1
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