Evaluating Teaching and Learning Modalities in Higher Education: The Case of BAMS Students

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, institutions were obliged to change the teaching methods, as conventional teaching methods were not adoptable for the legislations of COVID-19 protocols. Students in large number started enrolling in the online courses. The reviews about the effectiveness of the online teaching were mixed reviews when focused on academic achievement. Many learners and teachers also opine that, traditional teaching is still a better option to online teaching. Blended teaching is a way to unite the two teaching methods and can be useful in overcoming the shortcomings of both the teaching learning methods. Objectives: To compare understanding of topic by final year BAMS students, using Conventional teaching, Online teaching, and Blended teaching. Methodology: 70 students final year BAMS, will be selected for the study, which will be Study Protocol taught by Conventional, online and Blended method, in rotation. A pre test and post test will be conducted to get the results. Results: The data will be analyzed to identify the effectiveness of the teaching method, in terms of difference in the mean Pre test and Post test scores. Conclusion: If found effective, educational institutions must adopt blended teaching method over traditional and online teaching method to the larger favor of students


INTRODUCTION
The COVID-19, not only lead us to change our lifestyles, but also our teaching learning methods, for prevention of the pandemic. Changes in medical education have also occurred as a result of current teaching methodology changes as a result of the cancellation of traditional classroom instruction [1]. According to a recent higher education study, more than 2.35 million students registered in online courses in the fall of 2004. [2]. According to the survey, many postsecondary institutions are adopting online education as a long-term plan. Given the growing rise of online education and its importance to postsecondary schools, higher education institutions must provide highquality online programmes. According to the literature, there are two approaches to assess the quality of online education: student achievement and satisfaction. Some scholars suggest that online education can be as successful as traditional classroom instruction, despite inconsistent results from academic achievement studies [3][4]. Students were both satisfied and dissatisfied in several research studies on student satisfaction in online courses or programs [5][6].One of the most important tasks for teachers is to compare, analyse, and evaluate the methods they use in the classroom in order to motivate students and improve learning outcomes [7]. As a result, an attempt has been made in this study to compare the online teaching method with conventional teaching.

Need of the Study
Students, teachers other nonteaching members of the institutions providing higher education are getting familiar with the online teaching methods, applications, technical modalities, and issues with it. Many Universities have developed strategic plans for implementing online education. Technical soundness, training to use the applications, availability of gadgets, good quality internet. can also be some compounding factors. But the myths, doubts, and false conceptions about the ways online teaching is conducted, creates a need to research the effectiveness of the online teaching, in comparison to conventional teaching and blended teaching. Hence, the present study aims at comparing degree of understanding a particular topic by students with online teaching, conventional teaching, and blended teaching methods.

Study Design
Observational study.

Case definition:
Final year BAMS students willing to participate in the study.

Selection of Subjects:
3.1 Inclusion Criteria: 1. Final year BAMS students, irrespective of their gender.

Intervention
Total 70 students will be equally divided into three groups, i.e. Group A, Group B and Group C. As per their previous term examination result, students will be classified as low achievers &high achievers. Each group will be consisting of equal high and low achiever students. Before beginning the study, an institutional ethical committee's approval will be sought, as well as written informed consent from each participant. All students will be guided for the way of study conduct, using 'Google classroom' application, and conduction of the pre and post tests. Pre test form consisting of 20 Multiple Choice Questions will be distributed and collected from each student before teaching.
'Glaucoma' will be taken as study topic. In Group A, topic will be taught by Conventional method, in Group B it will be taught by Online teaching method using Google classroom, and in group C it will be taught by blended method of teaching. The topic will be completed in three sessions (each of an hour) for each group. Then post test form consisting of 20 Multiple Choice Questions will be distributed and filled up by the participants.
A crossover method will be adopted, for the rotation of the classes, so that all three groups will be taught by all three methods, as shown in Table 1.

Data Collection
The data will be collected from the scores obtained from pre test and post test forms submitted by the students. Online Teaching method is good for development of abilities and skill in students 8.
Conventional Teaching method is good for development of abilities and skill in students 9.
Blended Teaching method is good for development of abilities and skill in students 10. Conventional Teaching method gave me an opportunity to clarify the areas of confusion by asking questions to the facilitator (teacher) 11. Online Teaching method gave me a chance to improve my knowledge by discussing on knowledge deficient areas with other students 12. Blended teaching method gave me a chance to improve my knowledge by discussing on knowledge deficient areas with other students 13. Conventional Teaching method helped me to improve independent learning 14. The Online Teaching method enabled me to meet the objectives of the Topic taken. 15. The Blended Teaching method enabled me to meet the objectives of the Topic

Statistical Test
The effectiveness will be assessed by the pre and post test scores of students. Data will be analyzed by using appropriate statistical analysis.

RESULTS
The results will be drawn from the analysis of the data, obtained from the three groups.

DISCUSSION
Gone are the days, when the education used to be only study centric. In current times, education is regarded as something which should help in overall and complete, mental and physical, development of the students [8].
Students, teachers other nonteaching members of the institutions providing higher education are getting familiar with the online teaching methods, applications, technical modalities, and issues with it. In response to these changes in the prevention policies of COVID-19, several institutions have been developing strategic plans for implementing online learning. The online teaching method took a big leap in solving the problems of distant learning. Also, it is cheaper, adoptable, and time saving. The data obtained can be easily saved, modified, and transferred. However, myths and misconceptions about the difficulty of online teaching and learning, as well as the technologies available to support online instruction, persist, and the problems faced by students, create challenges for planning documents. Hence, the present study is planned at comparing degree of understanding a particular topic by students using conventional teaching, online teaching, and blended teaching methods. The self-blend model, in which students supplement their traditional studies by taking an additional online course off campus. (f) The enriched virtual model, in which students learn primarily online with occasional visits to a brick and mortar setting for face-toface tuition. In this study effectiveness of Flex model of Blended learning will be studied. Kintu et al. [9] stated that, the majority of the student characteristics and blended learning design features discussed in this study are important factors in the effectiveness of blended learning. There were no significant predictors of student performance among the independent variables. These gaps should be investigated further to see if they can be used to predict blended learning effectiveness in a similar or different learning environment [9,10].

CONCLUSION
Considering the current situation and if found effective, educational institutions must adopt blended teaching method over traditional and online teaching method to the larger benefit of learners.

CONSENT
The volunteers will be informed about the study protocol. Educational research format will be prepared and validated. Informed written consent of each participant will be obtained prior to study.

ETHICAL APPROVAL
Ethical approval will be taken prior to the study.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Author would like to thank DMIMSU for motivating and providing all necessary help for writing this article.