Assessing the Satisfaction of Kashan University of Medical Sciences Staff with Virtual Education Implemented Through Social Media during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Background: Following the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak and the need for social distance, the use of e-learning has become essential. The use of e-learning has always been associated with many challenges. Considering the importance of this issue and the lack of a study on virtual education in social media, the purpose of this study was to assess the satisfaction level of staff of Kashan University of Medical Sciences, Kashan, Iran, with virtual education provided through social media during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The present cross-sectional-analytical study was conducted in 2020 using cluster sampling method on 300 staff of Kashan University of Medical Sciences in the occupational groups of health workers, health care providers, experts, physicians, and staff experts. The data collection tool was a validated questionnaire from other studies and was provided to the participants virtually. This questionnaire contained 6 demographic questions and 17 questions related to the satisfaction of the subjects. The questionnaire had three sections: training course content, training presentation method, and training program through virtual media. Finally, the data were analyzed using SPSS software and various statistical tests. Findings: The lowest level of satisfaction was related to educational content with a score of 17.59 and educational method with 25 scores had the highest level of satisfaction. In general, the level of satisfaction with e-learning in women was higher than men, but this relationship was not significant (P > 0.05). In addition, the health care group had the highest and the expert group had the lowest overall satisfaction score of the training provided. Conclusion: The results indicate that the level of total satisfaction is approximately high, so in addition to education, special attention should be paid to its quality. Evaluating the opinions of Kashan Health Department staffs about the quality of education in the virtual context is not only a criterion for evaluating the quality of teaching but also focuses on the possibilities and necessities of improving and evaluating education by discovering educational shortcomings.