Students’ Motivation and self-regulated learning in health professions during Compulsory E-learning in COVID-19 pandemic.

Life Sciences-Medical Science

Abstract

Our objective is to assess motivation and self-regulated learning domains among undergraduate health professional students during compulsory E-learning in the COVID-19 pandemic, and explore inter-gender variabilities and the correlation between test anxiety and self-regulated learning. Institutional based descriptive study, Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) was administered to 291 healthy undergraduate students of health professions programs at Al Marefa University. Two months after shifting to compulsory E-learning, students were invited to return an online standardized self- administered questionnaire via Google form. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 23. Reliability analysis with an average close to or exceeds the recommended value  (α = 0.7). The extrinsic motivation was higher than the intrinsic one, the use of learning strategies was modest. Female students displayed significantly higher motivation and learning strategies scores (P=0.001). Male had higher extrinsic goal orientation P= 0.001, self-efficacy P= 0.043, Help-seeking P= 0.017, while females had a higher time study environment  P=0.027.  Also,  the  youngest  and oldest  students were  the  most motivated ones  (P= 0.04).  A  positive correlation  exists  between  test  anxiety  and  extrinsic  goal  orientation  (P=0.000).  Statistically  significant  correlations  exist between test anxiety and all of the learning strategies scales. There are adequate levels of motivation with moderate use of learning  strategies  among  health  professional  students  during  sudden  shifting  to  compulsory  E-learning  in  the  COVID-19 pandemic. Females’ students were more self-regulated learners than males. Further investigation of the use of the Motivated Strategies  for Learning  Questionnaire  and its association  with academic  achievement  is recommended  to assess  the online teaching experience.