Knowledge, Attitude and Perception of dental students towards E-Learning

BACKGROUND: E-learning comprises all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching. The information and communication systems, whether networked or not, serve as a specific media to implement the learning process. Hence this study aims to assess the knowledge and attitude of healthcare professional students towards e-learning. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted among 160 health care students. A pre validated questionnaire containing 12 questions items were mailed to the health care professional students who were studying in the first year. The responses were collected and tabulated. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics of the responses was performed using SPSS version 23.0 RESULTS: The findings of this study show that 37.5% of the respondents were more than 20 years old. Majority of the respondents were males (56.8%). A majority of 20% of BDS students strongly agreed that e-learning should be used as a supplementary tool (p<0.05).On doing chi square correlation, it was found that majority of the BDS and MBBS students agreed that e-learning is crucial for acquiring more competency. This difference was statistically significant (Chi-square test; p-value = 0.008) CONCLUSION: Within the limitations of the present study, majority of the students participating agreed that e learning is a method of teaching and learning and majority of the participants agreed that e-learning is crucial for acquiring competency.