Effectiveness of Webinar based Teaching for Physiotherapy Interns during COVID-19 in India- A Pilot Study

Introduction: SARS Covid II pandemic has consistently spread and has severely disrupted the lives of more than the three quarters of the world’s population. Their system is unable to effectively respond to the current challenges in the present day pandemic, which has put forth another challenge for medical educators across the world to deal with the huge responsibility of rethinking how to carry on delivering high quality medical education due to social isolation strategies and enormous clinical responsibilities. Webinars have become an essential component of Physiotherapy teaching during the pandemic periods. Lecturers have reported about satisfaction and enjoyable sessions during webinars. Materials and Method: An intern’s physiotherapy attitude form, student’s satisfaction questionnaire, smooth delivery and intuitive interface scores were dependent variables and Teaching Method (participation in a webinar or classroom teaching) is the independent variable. Result: Descriptive analysis and Students t-test were done for inter-group comparison of Webinar Group Vs Classroom group which were found to be statistically significant at p≤0.5. The scores for Webinar group vs Classroom group respectively are Physiotherapy attitude questionnaire Test scores (54.17±8.8 & 39.38±10.8, t=5.7*), Student’s satisfaction questionnaire scores (4.54±0.59 & 4.29±0.69, t=1.45), Smooth Delivery Scores (4.5±0.5 & 5.0±0, t= 4.79*), Students intuitive interface scores (4.63±0.4 & 3.04±0.2 t=13.2*) and Action taken scores (4.58±0.4 & 3.25±0.43, t=11.56*). Conclusion: The webinar based teaching is more effective as compared to classroom teaching for Physiotherapy Interns with a limitation to teaching practical skills especially in fields like Physiotherapy where it is essential.