Rapid transition to online teaching during COVID 19: Students’ and Teachers’ Perceptions in a Pioneer Caribbean Dental School

Background: The sudden advent of the COVID pandemic resulted in the closure of schools and universities in Trinidad, limiting face to face interactions and removing dental students from the clinical environment in The University of the West Indies. The dental school was challenged to complete the final year teaching with a rapid transition to online teaching. This study examined students’ and teachers’ perceptions of the effectiveness of emergency remote online teaching. Method: An online cross-sectional survey was administered on the perception of the online learning environment and challenges experienced and effectiveness of strategies used. Overall thirty-three dental students and eleven clinical academic teachers participated. The questionnaire was emailed to the participants for data collection and they responded by using a Likert scale. Reliability of the questionnaire was determined. Chi-squared (χ 2 ) tests were applied for determining the perceptions of students and teachers towards online teaching. Frequencies and percentages were also computed. Result: Cronbach’s alpha of the students’ and teachers’ questionnaire was calculated at 0.838 and 0.801 respectively. The majority of students (60.6% - 89.5%) perceived that online teaching strategies, have enhanced their clinical reasoning and critical thinking skills in clinical practice, felt motivated to learn, liked learning in their own space, at their own pace and found it easy to adapt. Nearly two-third students (63.6%) were happy to recommend continued use of online strategies. However, the majority (87.9%) perceived it to be somewhat or not effective at all in acquiring clinical skills. The challenges experienced were problems with connectivity to the internet (87.9%) while (48.5%) had experienced distraction during remote teaching. All χ 2 values were found to be statistically significant (either P<0.01 or P<0.05). The majority of teachers (72.7% - 92.9%) perceived that they created an enthusiastic online environment, effectively communicated with the students, engaged students in clinical reasoning and critical thinking and gave formative feedback. Teachers were equally divided on whether or not they prepared students to practice clinical skills. Conclusion: Students’ perceptions are similar to teachers’ perceptions in both are positive to the online teaching strategies but both groups reflected concerns over the acquisition of clinical skills.