Effects of COVID-19 on Japanese medical students' knowledge and attitudes toward e-learning in relation to performance on achievement tests

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many educational institutions to turn to electronic learning to allow education to continue under the stay-at-home orders/requests that were commonly instituted in early 2020. In this cross-sectional study, we evaluated the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on medical education in terms of students' attitudes toward online classes and their online accessibility; additionally, we examined the impacts of any disruption caused by the pandemic on achievement test performance based on the test results. The participants were 674 students (412 in pre-clinical, 262 in clinical) at Juntendo University Faculty of Medicine; descriptive analysis was used to examine the respondents' characteristics and responses. The majority of respondents (54.2%) preferred asynchronous classes. Mann-Whitney U tests revealed that while pre-clinical students preferred asynchronous classes significantly more than clinical students (39.6%, p < .001), students who preferred face-to-face classes had significantly higher total achievement test scores (U = 1082, p = .021, r = .22). To examine the impacts of pandemic-induced changes in learning, we conducted Kruskal-Wallis tests and found that the 2020 and 2021 scores were significantly higher than those over the last three years. These results suggest that while medical students may have experienced challenges adapting to electronic learning, the impact of this means of study on their performance on achievement tests was relatively low. Our study found that if possible, face-to-face classes are preferable in an electronic learning environment. However, the benefit of asynchronous classes, such as those that allow multiple viewings, should continue to be recognized even after the pandemic.