Students’ perception on E. Learning and Remote Exams during COVID 19 Outbreak 2020

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Background: Novel (COVID-19) has pushed educational institutions to learn through online resources, and the significance of e-learning has indeed become a necessity, current study was aimed to ascertain students ' perceptions on the implementation of e-learning and remote exams at Collage of Applied Medical Sciences, Prince Sattam Bin Abdul-Aziz University-KSA. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted in August 2020 on 242 students from the faculty of Applied Medical Sciences at Prince Sattam University. A well-constructed questionnaire was designed and administered online (via Google online survey and distributed via E. mail, and WhatsApp groups) to students, it had 22 Closed-ended questions altogether in the following items, which were divided into five domains. The answers were graded on the 5-point Likert scale from 1 to 5. The SPSS software (version 26) was used for data analysis. Result: From the students (242) participating in the study, a majority (63.7%) was from the Medical Laboratory Sciences department, (45.9%) used their laptops, 69% had a negative impression towards E. learning. The perception was converging on whether the E-learning method helped them understand the scientific material smoothly and clearly; 21.1%, 22.3%, 21.5%, and 19.8% were agreed, neutral, disagreed, and strongly disagreed, respectively. 55.9 % of students agreed that remote exam questions are appropriate and comprehensive. Conclusion: Although online learning is regarded as less social contact, lack of social presence, communications synchronization, and not preferable by students; online learning definitely has some positive effects on students, it is a crucial platform in crisis periods and also for people who are unable to complete their studies in person.