A Quantitative Study on the Perceived Learning Effectiveness between the Online and Traditional Internship of Medical Technology Students

Abstract

While internship is essential in developing skills and a valuable learning experience, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the education system including the shift from traditional to online internship. This study aims to find out if there was a significant difference in the perceived learning effectiveness between traditional and online internships for Medical Technology students. The respondents of the study were Medical Technology interns from a university in Manila. The interns from the Academic Year 2019-2020 represented the traditional internship batch. On the other hand, the interns from the Academic Year 2020-2021 represented the online internship batch. In addition, to measure the perceived learning effectiveness of the two methods in terms of participation, motivation and goal achievement, skill acquisition, knowledge retention, critical decision making and problem-solving, and interpersonal communication, and team cooperation, survey questionnaires through Google Forms were distributed to a total of 206 respondents in which AY 2019-2020 is the internship year of 41.3% (n=85), and AY 2020-2021 is the internship year of 58.7% (n=121). The quantitative analysis using Mann-Whitney U-test showed a significant difference in the aspect of the following: a) participation of students (z = −10.6, p < 0.001), b) motivation and goal achievement  (z = −11.1 p < 0.001), c) skill acquisition (z = −11.3 p < 0.001), d) knowledge retention (z = −10.8, p < 0.001), e) critical decision making and problem-solving(z = −10.8, p < 0.001), and interpersonal communication (z = −10.7, p < 0.001). The findings of this study suggest that the perceived learning effectiveness of traditional internship is significantly higher than online internship.