Medical students’ experiences harnessed to improve pharmacology teaching in new research project

Published: 11 March 2020

In a joint research project with the University of Nicosia, St George’s and University of Nicosia students are contributing to a study which may improve the MBBS medicine course at both institutions for years to come.

Funded by the Cyprus Research and Innovation Foundation and led by researchers across both universities, the project will assess the performance and perceptions of students from different backgrounds in the pharmacology elements of the course.

The project is aimed at understanding whether the problem-based learning (PBL) pharmacology curriculum taught at both universities is able to satisfy the learning needs of all students. With students from a wide range of educational backgrounds with different previous experiences, learning styles, and other characteristics, the researchers want to find out if this might impact learning on the course.

Project Coordinator for the study, Dr Soulla Nicolaou from the University of Nicosia, said: “One of our hypotheses is that students with a background in social sciences rather than biological sciences may struggle more with pharmacology. If our results show this to be the case, then we could propose adding additional sessions to support their learning and fill in some of the knowledge gaps these students may have.”

Students on their first, second and fourth years of the course are invited to participate in the research, with around 40% signing up to take part in the first year of the study, which involves Year 1 students. The study will look at the results of pharmacology exams and look at differences across the groups to see if any particular characteristics might be having an effect on learning.

The participants will also be invited to focus group discussions and given a questionnaire to find out more about satisfaction on the course. This will be used to help understand how experiences of PBL differ among the student population and how well the method of learning is received.

The findings from the research will be used to inform changes to the curriculum to better support student learning. “I hope we can come up with practical ways to support all students,” said Dr Nicolaou.

“If we can identify some groups that would benefit from interventions to our curriculum, then we can make changes and assess their impact. Hopefully this will ultimately contribute to reducing medication errors and prescribing errors.”

The study is no longer looking to recruit students to participate for the current academic year but will open again in the new academic year. Professor Anthony Albert and Dr Andrew Hitchings are responsible for coordinating project-related activities at St George’s.