• Rakesh Singh, Madhusudan Subedi, Smriti Pant, Pragya Rai, Krishna Gupta, Ambika Thapa, Kaushal Singh, Abdul Khan, Kishor Adhikari, Shanta Sharma, Sanjeev Shah, and Babita Singh.
• Patan Academy of Health Sciences, Lalitpur, Nepal.
• JNMA J Nepal Med Assoc. 2021 Feb 28; 59 (234): 128-133.

IntroductionThe outbreak of coronavirus disease in Nepal led medical colleges to suspend in person teaching-learning activities and ultimately online platform was introduced to deliver the contents of medical education. The objective of this study was to describe the perception of medical students towards online teaching-learning introduced during the COVID-19 outbreak in Nepal.MethodsAn online survey using a descriptive cross-sectional study design was carried out among 515 undergraduate medical students currently enrolled in medical colleges in Nepal. Ethical approval was sought from Nepal Health Research Council to conduct this study, and digital informed consent was taken from study respondents. A semi-structured questionnaire in Google form was utilized to collect data. The link of the Google form was sent to the potential respondents through email and social media. Descriptive statistics, including frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation were used to analyze data in Stastical Package for the Social Sciences version 20. Ethical approval was sought from Nepal Health Research Council to conduct this study, and digital informed consent was taken from study respondants.ResultsThe overall score of perception of online teaching-learning was 17.61±7.19, which indicated many problems in this method of teaching-learning. The mean score of perception of online teaching-learning was found to be different across sex, location of enrolled medical colleges, having a personal electronic device, having an internet connection at residence, having separate room/space for attending online classes, and self-rated computer skills. Moreover, only 28 (5.4%) of respondents had perceived online teaching-learning as a better method of delivering content of medical curricula.ConclusionsSurveyed medical students in Nepal were found to perceive many problems in online teaching-learning. Moreover, management and faculty members need to take the necessary measures for enhancing the online teaching-learning quality.

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