Academic performance and quality of life of medical students: the role of traditional and digital technologies in education

Introduction. Distance learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated the active introduction of digital technologies into higher education. In medical universities, where practical training is key, it is important to find the optimal balance of traditional and digital educational methods. The relevance and purpose of this study is to assess the impact of various technologies on the academic performance and quality of life of students, allows us to determine effective learning models in a dynamically developing higher education environment. Materials and methods. To achieve this goal, the performance of the 697 second year students of medical university was retrospectively assessed using the example of passing practical skills included in the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) of the discipline “Nursing manipulations in pediatrics” at the stations of the Accreditation Simulation Center of the university. The SF-36 questionnaire (shortform-36) was assessed for quality of life. To process the data, the Mann-Whitney U test, Pearson's χ2-square, Spearman's correlation coefficient, and odds ratio were used. Results. All students assessed their physical and emotional state as good before the pandemic, regardless of academic performance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the majority of respondents rated their health as excellent, very good and good, despite distance learning with forced limitation of social contacts and worsening emotional state. The dynamics of physical health correlated with the dynamics of academic performance during online learning. Distance learning compared to traditional learning demonstrated an increase in students' academic performance by 1.3-1.8 times (p<0.002). The leading components of quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic that showed significant improvements in academic performance included physical, social, and emotional components. KEYWORDS Conclusion. The data obtained allow us to conclude that the availability of digital educational technologies, the development of new teaching methods in a remote format, and the introduction of OSCE as the main criterion for academic performance determined the advantages of distance learning over traditional learning when passing practical skills algorithms at the Simulation Center