Background

COVID-19 lockdown has forced pharmacy education to be conducted remotely for approximately half of the second semester in the year 2019/2020. This sudden shift to distance learning has put the pharmacy education system through an extraordinary experience that may impact its future.

Objective

To investigate the effect emergency remote teaching has had on pharmacy education in Saudi Arabia, and to provide recommendations that may help set in place a contingency strategy.

Methods

Two cross-sectional Likert-scale based questionnaires targeted at students and teachers separately, designed to explore stakeholders' satisfaction in three areas of emergency distance teaching/learning: The use of virtual classrooms, completion of course learning outcomes (CLOs) and assessment via alternative methods during the COVID-19 lockdown period. Furthermore, phone interviews were conducted with teachers and students to discuss results from both questionnaires for further clarity on teacher and student views.

Results

Over 700 pharmacy students, from 19 different local colleges, and 74 faculty members from 10 different local colleges have participated in this study. While it was challenging for the majority of teachers (>60%) to delivery complex scientific concepts over virtual classrooms, >35% of students and 60% of teachers have expressed concerns on the lack of student–student and student–teacher interactions. A factor that has shown a significantly negative correlation with student overall satisfaction (p < 0.01). Emergency remote teaching has forced teachers to alternative assessment methods, which the majority (70%) believe had a positive effect on students' overall skills. Almost half of students (45%) were concerned by the lack of guidance accompanied by unfamiliar methods of assessments.

Conclusions

Based on statistically analysed results from cross sectional Likert-scale questionnaires aimed at stakeholders of pharmaceutical education, this study concludes with a number of recommendations that may help pharmacy colleges seize this unique opportunity to further enhance the quality of pharmacy education in Saudi Arabia.

中文翻译：

---

调查 COVID-19 封锁对沙特阿拉伯药学教育的影响 - 呼吁制定远程教学应急策略。

背景

COVID-19 锁定迫使药学教育在 2019/2020 年第二学期的大约一半时间里远程进行。这种向远程学习的突然转变使药学教育系统经历了一次可能影响其未来的非凡经历。

客观的

调查紧急远程教学对沙特阿拉伯药学教育的影响，并提供可能有助于制定应急策略的建议。

方法

两份基于李克特量表的横断面问卷，分别针对学生和教师，旨在探讨利益相关者在紧急远程教学/学习的三个领域的满意度：虚拟教室的使用、课程学习成果 (CLO) 的完成和通过替代方案进行的评估在 COVID-19 锁定期间的方法。此外，还与教师和学生进行了电话访谈，以讨论两种问卷的结果，以进一步明确教师和学生的观点。

结果

来自 19 个不同地方大学的 700 多名药学学生和来自 10 个不同地方大学的 74 名教职员工参加了这项研究。虽然大多数教师（>60%）难以通过虚拟教室传递复杂的科学概念，但超过 35% 的学生和 60% 的教师对缺乏学生-学生和学生-教师互动表示担忧。一个与学生总体满意度呈显着负相关的因素（p < 0.01）。紧急远程教学迫使教师采用替代评估方法，大多数 (70%) 认为这对学生的整体技能产生了积极影响。几乎一半的学生（45%）担心缺乏指导以及不熟悉的评估方法。

结论

根据针对药学教育利益相关者的横断面李克特量表问卷的统计分析结果，本研究得出了一些建议，这些建议可能有助于药学院抓住这一独特的机会，进一步提高沙特阿拉伯的药学教育质量。