(630)STUDENT LEARNING PREFERENCE: THE IMPACT OF HORIZONTAL ALIGNMENT COMPARING SECOND AND THIRD YEAR COHORTS UNDERTAKING A PHARMACEUTICAL ANALYSIS COURSE IN THE SCHOOL OF PHARMACY, GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY, AUSTRALIA

摘要

Background: The current teaching and learning approach in student education adopted by highereducation institutions is through transformation of the students' learning experience to encouragedeep approaches, enabling them to attain more sophisticated beliefs about learning and knowledge.This era is very exciting but also challenging as universities have been subject to increasing demandsfor quality in teaching and learning. Pharmacy schools around Australia are no exception with constantdemands from accreditors to better prepare the students for the workforce. The 3rd yearPharmaceutical Analysis course introduces students to a range of pharmaceutical analysis andspectroscopic techniques important to the hospital, community, and industrial pharmacy settings.Students found this course challenging and it was deemed more appropriate to be offered duringsecond year to better horizontally align with other courses offered in the school. We therefore set outto analyse and compare student preferences between 2nd and 3rd year cohorts when they wereoffered the same course at the same time.Method: This study was conducted at the School of Pharmacy, Griffith University, Gold CoastCampus, Southport, Australia. Ethical approval was granted by the Griffith University Human EthicsCommittee (PHM14/13/HREC).Pharmaceutical Analysis is a semester (13 week)long 3rd year course (3026PHM). In 2013 thecourse was offered for the first time for 2nd year students, the course code being changed to2008PHM. Therefore, for the academic year 2013, the course was delivered concurrently to 2nd and3rd year students. Both cohorts sat in the same lectures, tutorials and laboratories and undertook thesame assessment items.Student preference was measured in terms of the student evaluation of course (SEC)and studentevaluation of teaching (SET). Both surveys offered the students the chance to rate and comment onthe course quality and teaching team anonymously. These surveys are based on the five-point Likertscale (Strongly disagree, disagree, neutral, agree, strongly agree)and include six and five questionsrespectively.Results: A total of 90 and 67 students enrolled in 3026PHM and 2008PHM respectively in theacademic year 2013. Overall 32 student (36%)from 3026PHM and 28 students (42%)from 2008PHMresponded to the surveys. There were statistically significant differences in almost all questions withstudents from 2008PHM showing more positive responses. In particular, 2nd year students were morepositive than 3rd year students in terms of engagement with the course (3.5±1.04 vs 2.6±1.11, p <0.05), reporting that the course was effective in their learning (3.9±0.9 vs 2.8±1.18, p < 0.05)and inoverall satisfaction with the quality of the course (3.9±0.85 vs 2.7±1.18, p < 0.05).Conclusion: Pharmacy students are generally positive about laboratory-based courses but these tendto be run in the early stages of the program with experiential placements preferred by students in thelater stages of the program. In this example, the evidence clearly showed that there was amisalignment between Pharmaceutical Analyses and other courses in the program. A simple strategyof moving the course to ensure better horizontal alignment at the second year level appears to haveresulted in a significant improvement in student engagement and satisfaction.