Abstract

OOSTHUIZEN, Frasia; OWIRA, Peter  and  BANGALEE, Varsha. Pharmacy students' experience towards active learning using 'Clickers'. IJTL [online]. 2019, vol.14, n.1, pp.32-41. ISSN 2519-5670.

The knowledge and application of pharmacology is central to ensuring that pharmacists are able to fulfil their professional roles. Academics teaching pharmacology in the pharmacy programme at the University of KwaZulu-Natal must ensure 'learning that lasts' despite being faced with ever increasing student numbers. In an attempt to achieve this, active learning, using clickers (an example of an audience response system), was incorporated into an undergraduate pharmacology module in the pharmacy programme with the aim of improving large group student learning. While clickers have been increasingly used as a tool to promote active learning in the higher education domain, little is known about students' experience towards its use in undergraduate pharmacy programmes. This study sought to describe students' experience and opinions on active learning strategies using clickers. This was a quantitative, descriptive study that utilised a self-administered questionnaire conducted amongst level three pharmacy students enrolled in a pharmacology module. Overall, student feedback was positive, as they indicated that they enjoyed using clickers - and had an improved understanding of the course content. Students additionally benefited from the increased facilitator and peer interaction. This study provides a motivation for including this teaching pedagogy in other modules in the pharmacy programme.

Keywords : pharmacology teaching; audience response systems; clickers; active learning; pharmacy education.

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