Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning Strategy Enhances Students’ Higher Level Thinking Skills in a Pharmaceutical Sciences Course

Abstract

Objective. To determine if the process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) teaching strategy improves student performance and engages higher-level thinking skills of first-year pharmacy students in an Introduction to Pharmaceutical Sciences course. Design. Overall examination scores and scores on questions categorized as requiring either higherlevel or lower-level thinking skills were compared in the same course taught over 3 years using traditional lecture methods vs the POGIL strategy. Student perceptions of the latter teaching strategy were also evaluated. Assessment. Overall mean examination scores increased significantly when POGIL was implemented. Performance on questions requiring higher-level thinking skills was significantly higher, whereas performance on questions requiring lower-level thinking skills was unchanged when the POGIL strategy was used. Student feedback on use of this teaching strategy was positive. Conclusion. The use of the POGIL strategy increased student overall performance on examinations, improved higher-level thinking skills, and provided an interactive class setting.Keywords: POGIL, active learning, process skills, instructional assessment INTRODUCTIONDeveloping students' critical-thinking and problemsolving skills is an educational goal common to perhaps every academic program or discipline. Critical to achieving this goal is the use of teaching and learning strategies that engage students and promote development of the process skills of application, analysis, and evaluation. Yet, despite a growing body of evidence demonstrating the efficacy and superiority of active-learning strategies and national reports calling for the adoption of these methods, 1-4 instructional strategies in science and math disciplines tend to be passive, leading to student disengagement and contributing to the "leaky pipeline" of science. [5][6][7][8][9] The reasons science faculty members give for being reluctant to adopt active-learning strategies include the significant amount of time needed to prepare materials, the reluctance to reduce the amount of material covered, and the perception that students are unwilling to engage in or prepare for these types of classroom activities. [10][11][12] In the pharmacy academy, active-learning strategies are recognized as important to achieving educational outcomes and, therefore, widely adopted in professional programs. [13][14][15] However, the use of active-learning strategies is not uniformly distributed. Faculty members in the biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences are 3 times less likely than faculty members in the clinical and social and administrative sciences to use these techniques. 15 Process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) is a teaching strategy that was initially developed in college chemistry and biology courses and is used successfully to engage students in the classroom and to promote learning. [16][17][18][19][20] The POGIL strategy begins with introducing students to a model, diagram, problem, or set of data and then requires them to ...

Blended Module‐Based Teaching in Biostatistics and Research Methodology: A Retrospective Study with Postgraduate Dental Students

“…25,26 Studies have also found that POGIL transformed the classroom into an active learning zone with improved student performance in examinations and higher learning skills. 27,28 The academic caliber of the students in our study could have been a potential confounding factor in the results, but there was no statistically signiicant diference in the undergraduate marks of the two groups of students. Also, the end-of-year biostatistics and research methodology question paper may not be a confounding factor because the university has a well-organized question bank with structured key points that have been given to students at the beginning of their course; also, the questions were meticulously chosen according to the same diiculty level for both the groups of students.…”

“…Evaluations of the efectiveness of POGIL have found that it leads to enhanced learning outcomes for students. [11][12][13] POGIL was originally developed for use in chemistry courses, and its application has spread to other science disciplines. However, according to a systematic review, the use of this learning process in dental education has rarely been studied.…”

Validity of guided inquiry-based modules on digestive system to improve argumentation skill

“…Student presentations must contain aspects of claim arguments, reasoning and evidence. Presentation or sharing activities can improve learning outcomes because students are able to evaluate what has been learned (Muhlisin et al, 2018;Soltis, Verlinden, Kruger, Carroll, & Trumbo, 2015). The page views of the concept map can be seen in Figure 5.…”

Redesigning a Pharmacology Course to Promote Active Learning

“…Persky and colleagues, examined the impact of implementing games, multimedia modules and reflective writing 19 , by converting a large lecture pharmacokinetics course into smaller group courses 20 and then following that study up with an eight-year retrospective study in a "flipped" pharmacokinetics course that began first as a lecture with active learning course that was then redesigned to a recitation format before transitioning to a team-based-learning course 21 . Other examples include a process-oriented guided-inquiry learning (POGIL) 22 and a problem based learning based class in medicinal chemistry 23 and a POGIL introductory course in pharmaceutical sciences 24 .…”