Effect of Delivery Format on Student Outcomes and Perceptions of a Veterinary Medicine Course: Synchronous versus Asynchronous Learning

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted instruction at many veterinary schools to switch to an emergency remote teaching format to prevent viral transmission associated with in-person synchronous lectures. This study surveyed student perspectives and academic performance in a pre-planned online second-year veterinary toxicology course given at North Carolina State University in Spring 2020. This course relied on asynchronous narrated presentations for content delivery. This method of delivery predated the pandemic and was used throughout the course. Academic performance and patterns of access to materials in the online course was compared with the access patterns and performance of students given classroom-based synchronous teaching in Spring 2019. Assessments evaluated in this study were identical across courses. Students' academic performance was unaffected by delivery method. Lack of instructor interaction was an important perceived barrier in the asynchronous course. Asynchronous course materials were uniformly accessed across all days of the week, while supplemental materials for the face-to-face course showed a weekly pattern. Moving from letter grades to pass/fail did not change access frequency to supplemental course materials but led to decreased video usage in the asynchronous course. Results suggest that although some veterinary students perceived the switch in delivery format negatively, the method of delivery did not adversely affect performance in this preclinical course.

Keywords: emergency remote teaching; online learning; student perceptions; toxicology.

Figure 1

Total number of hits per day on course learning management system (LMS) site for online toxicology course, along with corresponding milestone events. Note that Spring Break occurred 14–22 March 2020. SMU: satisfactory, marginal, unacceptable.

Figure 2

Total number of hits per day on course LMS site for the face-to-face course toxicology course, along with corresponding milestone events. Red lines indicate Tuesdays when maximum access to the course materials occurred. Note that the y-axis scale does not match that used in Figure 1.

Figure 3

Total number of hits per day on the Mediasite server, for access to videos (narrated Powerpoints) in the online toxicology course, along with corresponding milestone events. Note that Spring Break occurred 14–22 March 2020.