Perception by teachers of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry of the USC on virtual and synchronous teaching after the COVID-19 crisis

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has promoted changes in higher education worldwide, demanded by social distancing measures that prevent any face-to-face teaching. The objective of this work is to know the perception and use by teachers of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC) on the virtual learning environment (VLE) through a cross-sectional study based on self-administered surveys using Microsoft Forms. The data were statistically analyzed using the SPSS v.24.0 program. The response rate was 46.3%. The sample consisted of 23 men (35.5%) and 40 women (63.5%). 50.8% have more than 20 years of teaching experience. 49.2% of those surveyed did not use the virtual campus (CV) before the Covid-19 crisis and 6.3% continue not to use it today. Only 6.3% used synchronous remote teaching and only 54% believe it is valid for its application to Health Sciences. The non-users of the CV, mostly (64.5%) begin to use it as courier and delivery of teaching material, while of the regular users, 59.4% exploit all its tools (chi2 = 15.640, Cramer's V = 0.498, p = 0.001). The records of use registered in the study confirm a low use in the analyzed teaching environment, indicating that the acquisition of training in the use of the virtual campus in university teaching should be promoted in order to increase their employment.