Effects of realistic e-learning cases on students' learning motivation during COVID-19

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 16; no. 4; p. e0249425
• Main Authors: Rahm, Ann-Kathrin, Töllner, Maximilian, Hubert, Max Ole, Klein, Katrin, Wehling, Cyrill, Sauer, Tim, Hennemann, Hannah Mai, Hein, Selina, Kender, Zoltan, Günther, Janine, Wagenlechner, Petra, Bugaj, Till Johannes, Boldt, Sophia, Nikendei, Christoph, Schultz, Jobst-Hendrik
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 21.04.2021; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Biology and Life Sciences; Cardiology; Colleges & universities; Computer-Assisted Instruction - methods; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 - psychology; Curricula; Curriculum; Distance learning; Drafting software; Editing; Education, Distance - methods; Education, Medical - methods; Education, Medical, Undergraduate - methods; Educational aspects; Endocrinology; Epidemics; Female; Forecasts and trends; Funding; Gastroenterology; Hematology; Hospitals; Humans; Infectious diseases; Influence; Internal medicine; Intoxication; Learning; Male; Medical education; Medical schools; Medical students; Medicine; Medicine and Health Sciences; Methodology; Motivation; Motivation in education; Online education; Online instruction; Pandemics; People and Places; Psychosomatics; Public health; Qualitative analysis; Questionnaires; SARS-CoV-2 - isolation & purification; Social Isolation - psychology; Social Sciences; Students; Students, Medical - psychology; Teaching; Visualization; Young Adult; Germany
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0249425

Keeping up motivation to learn when socially isolated during a pandemic can be challenging. In medical schools, the COVID-19 pandemic required a complete switch to e-learning without any direct patient contact despite early reports showing that medical students preferred face-to-face teaching in clinical setting. We designed close to real-life patient e-learning modules to transmit competency-based learning contents to medical students and evaluated their responses about their experience. Weekly e-learning cases covering a 10-week leading symptom-based curriculum were designed by a team of medical students and physicians. The internal medicine curriculum (HeiCuMed) at the Heidelberg University Medical School is a mandatory part of clinical medical education in the 6th or 7th semester. Case-design was based on routine patient encounters and covered different clinical settings: preclinical emergency medicine, in-patient and out-patient care and follow-up. Individual cases were evaluated online immediately after finishing the respective case. The whole module was assessed at the end of the semester. Free-text answers were analyzed with MaxQDa following Mayring`s principles of qualitative content analyses. N = 198 students (57.6% female, 42.4% male) participated and 1252 individual case evaluations (between 49.5% and 82.5% per case) and 51 end-of-term evaluations (25.8% of students) were collected. Students highly appreciated the offer to apply their clinical knowledge in presented patient cases. Aspects of clinical context, interactivity, game-like interface and embedded learning opportunities of the cases motivated students to engage with the asynchronously presented learning materials and work through the cases. Solving and interpreting e-learning cases close to real-life settings promoted students' motivation during the COVID-19 pandemic and may partially have compensated for missing bedside teaching opportunities.