Trends in Online Learning for Adult Learners in Science and Medical Education

Over the last several years, especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, numerous innovations in medical education have emerged to improve the quality of educational resources. As many students continue to rely on asynchronous and virtual tools for learning, this trend has become particularly evident. This review aims to provide insight into the latest technological and ideological research surrounding adult internet-based education and explore some of the hype within the literature over the last ten years. A comprehensive literature screening was conducted on Google Scholar, PubMed, and EBSCO between February 27, 2024, and September 14, 2024. Careful selection of articles addressing the evidence behind the various topics and their impacts on adult learning outcomes, including retention, attention, and engagement, was performed. An attempt was made to select basic and leading articles on the current trends in adult learning, specifically those influencing current trends in both online learning and medical education. A total of 43 papers were included for the final formulation of this narrative review. This review is firmly grounded in the concepts of andragogy and the idea that the student is the main driver of their education. The review linked the major themes that it discovered to this theory and explained how the major concepts were well grounded within the theoretical framework. Some of the most intriguing and increasingly important aspects include educational videos provided by school or discovered within the “hidden curriculum” of explanatory content on YouTube or other video-hosting platforms, the influence of video playback speed, the integration of virtual and augmented realities in both classrooms and simulation laboratories, and the use of massive open online courses to disseminate classroom materials to a much wider audience.