Perceptions of faculty towards online teaching for undergraduate medical education: An interview-based qualitative study

Background The Covid-19 pandemic drastically affected medical education. One consequence was the shift of teaching–learning process to the online mode. This left many teachers unprepared. Our medical education department of a large teaching hospital did a qualitative analysis of the perceptions of the faculty towards this forced change. Methods We conducted in-depth interviews with 10 of the nearly hundred undergraduate faculty of a teaching hospital in southern India, with a strength of 100 students per batch. The participants were chosen by purposive sampling so as to include all phases and seniority levels. Seven categories related to the topic of research were decided. These were given to the participants to then speak freely about. Standard methods for recording and transcribing were followed. Deductive content analysis was done to obtain the emergent themes. Results The faculty had a definite negative perception of online teaching. Lack of interaction, absence of immediate feedback and concerns about attendance were uniformly the biggest issues. Practical and clinical teaching was deemed nearly impossible to be taught online. The positives were the gradual comfort factor with online teaching, and the mental preparation for the long haul with this modality. Conclusion In-depth interview and its qualitative analysis proved useful in getting a deeper understanding of the perceptions of the medical faculty towards online teaching–learning. The negative and positive perceptions thus obtained have proved useful as feedback to the medical education department to suggest changes to improve the online teaching programme.