Introduction and Assessment of a Blended-Learning Model to Teach Patient Assessment in a Doctor of Pharmacy Program

Abstract

Objective. To integrate a blended-learning model into a two-course patient assessment sequence in a doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) program and to assess the academic performance and perceptions of enrolled students. Design. A blended-learning model consisting of a flipped classroom format was integrated into a patient assessment (PA) course sequence. Course grades of students in the blended-learning (intervention) and traditional-classroom (control) groups were compared. A survey was administered to assess student perceptions. Assessment. The mean numeric grades of students in the intervention group were higher than those of students in the traditional group (PA1 course: 92.263.1 vs 90.064.3; and PA2 course: 90.364.9 vs 85.864.2). Eighty-six percent of the students in the intervention group agreed that the instructional methodologies used in this course facilitated understanding of the material. Conclusion. The blended-learning model was associated with improved academic performance and was well-received by students.

A Narrative Overview of the Effectiveness of E-learning in Pharmacy Education

“…Participant satisfaction with the quality of the learning experience is of fundamental importance when evaluating the effectiveness of any teaching method for pharmacy education [7,8]. The results of this review suggest that e-learning satisfies this minimum requirement and that, when compared to more traditional teaching methods, e-learning offers increased convenience, [10,12,17,21,28,29,38,52,56] learning [12,17,21,28,29,52,56,58,60] and the ability to use class time more effectively [20,33,35,50,55,57,63]. These unique advantages clearly establish a role for e-learning within pharmacy education, but it is the disadvantages of e-learning that help to define what this role may be.…”

“…The positive reaction in the remaining studies was primarily satisfaction with the effectiveness of the e-learning methods and quality of the learning experience provided. Studies also identified a number of advantages of e-learning, which include increased convenience [10,12,17,21,28,29,38,52,56], the ability to protect 'in class time' [20,33,35,50,55,57,63], the empowerment of students to take responsibility for their own learning [17,20,33,35,50,56,57,63] found the e-learning intervention to be effective in increasing the knowledge or skills of the participants. In 2 of the 3 studies that did not have a positive outcome, Weaver et al, [34] and DeMella et al, [62] examined the delivery of a blended health policy course and an online ethics course, respectively, to pharmacy students.…”

“…Of the fifty-six studies that were reviewed, all were limited by methodological flaws. Thirty (53.6%) studies [11,12,[14][15][16][17]19,20,22,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][35][36][37]43,46,47,49,[52][53][54]56,58,63,64] did not establish the baseline knowledge, confidence or skills of participants and this is significant in two regards: It does not allow accurate comparison between groups, as differences in baseline knowledge may be responsible for differences in final knowledge; and it does not allow the impact of the intervention in increasing students' performance to be quantified. Three (5.4%) [25,55,57] of the nine studies that reviewed blended learning methods, failed to assess the effectiveness of the e-learning intervention independently of the face-to-face teaching.…”

Design, Implementation and Evaluation of Proposal Writing Module Through Blended and Face to Face Learning Methods

“…In Rovai and Jordan opinion, half-face learning is a kind of flexible approach in training programs which is com-posed of learning at different times and places to support some of the features of virtual presence in training offers (4). Learning communities are able to put new multidimensional relationships (personal and academic) with learners in learning concepts so that being extensible beyond time, space, and limited courses (5).…”

“…In addition, they have access to content at any time, so this method makes data accessibility much easier (8). In blended approach, education is done with holistic attitude towards learner by taking his/her personal characteristics such as beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, skills and mental abilities into consideration (4).…”