Journal of Qualitative Research in Health Sciences

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Community Based Psychiatric Care Research Center, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

2 Department of Nursing, Amol Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Mazandaran University of Medical Science, Sari, Iran

3 Department of Operating Room, School of Paramedical, Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Birjand University of Medical Sciences, Birjand, Iran

4 Primary Health Care Nurse Practitioner Student, Athabasca University, Athabasca, AB, Canada

5 Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran

6 Mental Health Research Center, Psychosocial Health Research Institute, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

10.34172/jqr.2024.06

Abstract

Background: The emergence of the Internet and its development led to the expansion of virtual education. The development of virtual education in recent years has had a tremendous impact on the improvement of education and the establishment of educational justice in different parts of the world. Despite its advantages, virtual education is also associated with some challenges. The present study aimed to investigate para medicine students’ experiences of virtual education.
Methods: This qualitative study was conducted using conventional content analysis. The participants were 25 students in various fields of para medicine who were selected using purposive sampling. The study took place at universities in the north of Iran. The data were collected using semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus groups from January to April 2022. The collected data were analyzed using Graneheim and Lundman’s qualitative content analysis method.
Results: The core category identified in this study was from helplessness to interaction which was divided into three main categories (challenges and desperation, deprivation of mutual interaction and learning, and resilience and adaptation) and fourteen subcategories.
Conclusion: The main theme extracted from the interviews with the participants was from helplessness to interaction. When a person has numerous failures, cannot control environmental conditions, and feels the ineffectiveness of their activity and response, they will experience a sense of vulnerability. Thus, the person has to accept the conditions and interact with them. In other words, interaction is a skill that improves the ability to quickly learn new skills and behaviors in response to the conditions. Thus, identifying challenges and realizing the weaknesses, strengths, opportunities, and threats governing the existing virtual education environment can help to turn many threats into opportunities, promote virtual education, and support teachers and students to improve the quality and quantity of the teaching-learning process in the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 era.

Highlights

Mahnaz Rakhshan (Google Scholar) (PubMed)

Noushin Mousazadeh (Google Scholar) (PubMed)

Fatemeh Hajihosseini (Google Scholar) (PubMed)

Samaneh Bagherian (Google Scholar) (PubMed)

Narges Moradi (Google Scholar) (PubMed)

Hamideh Hakimi; Hadi Ranjbar (Google Scholar) (PubMed)

 

Keywords

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