Teaching Microbiology- Online and Offline Challenges during COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: The coronavirus pandemic has caused a general crisis, affecting several sectors of the society, sectors that were not exactly ready to deal with critical situations. This is also the case with education, which was faced a huge challenge: digital, online teaching teaching.

Objectives: The aim of this study is to compare the effectiveness of online microbiology course with a traditional course, taught by the same professors, the students involved are in the first three years of study at the Faculty of Midwifery and Nursing, in the University of Medicine and Pharmacy "Carol Davila" from Bucharest.

Methods: The period of our study was of two years, 2019-2021. The first year had digital classes and the second had face to face classes The study conducted a prospective study. It was used a 10-question questionnaire as a tool for assessing students' perceptions regarding the difficulty of online teaching with every aspect, such as homework’s, projects, presentations and online browsing. It was also compared the method of online and traditional education.

Results: Almost half of our participants, 46.9% found the teaching files for the online lectures satisfactory and understandable while 51% of students considered easier to study online than face to face. Regarding face-to-face studying, 67.3% of the responders voted for the face-to-face teaching. Technical issues were reported by 47.2% when connecting or during online classes.

Findings: This study will contribute to future research that investigates students' perceptions of microbiology courses and laboratories to ensure the development of a quality microbiology curriculum.