scholarly journals Assessment of undergraduates’ preferences and opinions on teaching of Pharmacology

Author(s):  
B. B. Bukar ◽  
K. D. Falang ◽  
S. S. Gyang

Background: The preference and opinion of undergraduate students on teaching of pharmacology was assessed using structured-based questionnaires. The objective was to determine the best way to teach pharmacology and the areas the students prefer most.Methods: The questionnaires were administered to students during academic sessions in any of their pharmacology lectures by the help of technical assistants. It was also ensured that the identity of the students was not made known except for the gender. A total of 8 questions with options ranging from 2-4 were used. Each respondent was to select only one option as the most preferred. A total of 405 students participated during the study period and it was ensured that no student participated more than once. The students recruited were 4th and 5th year medical and pharmacy students of the University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria for the 2014/2015 and 2015/2016 academic sessions.Results: The results showed that the students have high preference for latest technology teaching aids such as power point presentation and use of software for lecture notes.Conclusions: Knowledge of pharmacodynamics, clinical pharmacology and laboratory experiment were preferred and significant differences exist between observed and expected results and also between males and females in preferences among some of the options. Students need to be informed at the beginning of their lectures that pharmacology is a subject that must be regarded as a whole with no areas of preference.

2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 60-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rukhsana Parvin ◽  
Md Nazmul Haque ◽  
Naser Ahmed ◽  
Reza Ahmad ◽  
Md Imran Ali ◽  
...  

Objectives: Different teaching aids are advocated in the medical colleges for delivery of lectures such as power point presentation, blackboard, transparency sheet, overhead projectors, extempore and lecture sheets .The aim of our study was to compare the more acceptable teaching methods between the students of Dhaka Medical College and Enam Medical College. Materials and Methods: Total one hundred students were selected from fourth year in each medical college. They were asked to fill in a fourteen item questionnaire about their perception of five lecture delivery methods. Questionnaire was properly explained. The results were analyzed separately to find out any differences between preferences of teaching methods in both medical colleges. Results: In DMC 50% students preferred traditional blackboard method ,25% PowerPoint presentations, 5% both blackboard and PowerPoint, 16% extempore and 4% lecture sheet .On the other hand, in EMC, 53% mentioned PowerPoint presentation as most acceptable, 38% blackboard, 5% combined blackboard and PowerPoint and 4% extempore. Some important comments were recorded which could be valuable for the medical teachers. Conclusion: The study showed that students of DMC clearly prefer traditional blackboard method rather than other teaching aids, whereas students of EMC prefer PowerPoint presentation. The study does not bring out any evidence based superiority of any lecture delivery method. It appears that any teaching aid can be appropriate and effective if the teachers are properly trained. This highlights the need for formal training in teaching technologies for good presentation and thus motivate the students. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bjmed.v21i2.13612 Bangladesh J Medicine 2010; 21: 60-64


Author(s):  
A. Bhagyalakshmi ◽  
Prasad Uma

Background: COVID-19 outbreak has taught us to opt for technologies, which have not been used before. There is lot of information available on the internet for learning, but undergraduate students of medicine need continuous guidance. The best platform would be live online teaching which includes student centred learning and observing appropriate COVID-19 social distancing. Aims and objectives of the study was to highlight various positive and negative impacts of COVID-19 on medical education.Methods: The students included in the study are from second MBBS with total number of 200. Time table was planned and everyday two live lectures across their subjects of study were taken. The classes were carried out using the Cisco Webex software. The students were able to ask questions and cleared doubts during and at the end of each class. The feedback of the session was collected by structured format and observations recorded.Results: In the present study the advantages of online classes based on student observations were: learning at ease, flexible environment, no delay in classes, and no peer distraction. In the present study the disadvantages were: eyes are getting strained, network issues, concentrate for long time, disturbances at home and no practical knowledge. In the present study, improvements and suggestions offered were to provide recorded videos or power point presentation, case based discussions, assignments and revision classes to be increased.Conclusions: The present study had several limitations. The study was conducted during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic at a Government Institute where most students belong to middle class. Despite these limitations, we believe the study provides relevant insights into the challenges facing online medical education in a time of healthcare crisis.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
C Çam ◽  
A Kılınç ◽  
A Ahmet ◽  
M F Önsüz ◽  
S Metintaş

Abstract Background The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of hazardous alcohol consumption (HAC) according to gender among university students and associated factors. Methods The study is a cross-sectional study conducted on undergraduate students who were studying at Eskisehir Osmangazi University in 2019. To ensure a representative sample of 26036 students from all grade levels, we used a stratified sampling technique from 11 faculties at the university and the questionnaire was applied to 2349 undergraduate students. The prevalence of HAC was determined with the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT). HAC was defined as getting 8 points or more from the AUDIT. Multivariate logistic regression analyzes were performed to examine HAC related factors in males and females. Results 1250 (53.2%) of the participants were male. The age of the study group ranged between 18 and 35, and the mean (SD) was 21.04 (2.07) years. The prevalence of HAC in the study group was 13.5% (18.8% male and 8.2% female), and lifetime prevalence of alcohol use was 65.3% (74.5% male and 54.8% female). In males; those whose fathers [OR = 1.74; 95% CI: (1.18-2.55)], mothers [1.52; (1.04-2.22)], best friends [2.57; (1.35-4.88)] use alcohol and those who smoke [3.11; (2.06-4.71)], use illicit drugs [2.42; (1.68-3.47)], have depressive disorders [1.68; (1.06-2.68)] were more likely to report HAC. Meanwhile in females, those whose fathers [OR = 1.93; 95%CI: (1.03-3.62)], best friends [6.21; (1.83-21.05)] use alcohol and those who smoke [4.82; (2.53-9.17)], use illicit drugs [4.79; (2.52-9.10)] have depressive disorders [2.96; (1.63-5.39)] were more likely to report HAC. Conclusions HAC prevalence is high among university students. The risk of HAC increases with the use of alcohol in family and circle of friends, smoking, illegal substance usage and depressive disorders. The factors associated with the risk of HAC in males and females are similar. Key messages The university students are at a higher risk for HAC than the general population. Strategies should be developed to identify and prevent university students who are more likely to use hazardous alcohol and the situations that trigger this consumption model.


Needs Analysis in the context of language-learning-teaching is an important process to design a certain course and syllabus. It helps course designers to set objectives, choose content, method of instruction, appropriate teaching aids, and classroom activities for different courses. This paper reports the perceptions of the researchers on the English language learning needs of the English undergraduate students of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University Sheringal, Pakistan. The data is based on the researchers’ personal experience and first-hand observation of the population as the researchers have been teaching in the target context for about a decade. Furthermore, the researchers have always been in discussion with their students and colleagues about the target students’ English learning needs, preferred learning styles, motivation in learning English, interest, strengths/weaknesses, and attitude toward English learning in the target setting. Learners’ assignments, exam answer sheets, and presentations have also been used is a source of data collection. A needs analysis model proposed by Hutchinson and Waters (1987) has been applied in order to analyze the data. The results show that the students lack well grammatical sentences, have poor spellings, capitalization problems, limited vocabulary, unaware of collocations, poor/slow reading comprehension, and lack of effective presentation skills. Furthermore, most of the students have a lack of involvement in classroom activities and feel shy about speaking the English language. It was reported that the provision of authentic material, interesting activities, suitable audio-visual aids, relevant texts, language labs, and other logistic arrangements can better help them in learning the English language. The findings demonstrate that the students wished to have a learner-centered-course that helps them excel in their academic life and learning the English language.


Author(s):  
Julia Winter ◽  
Roland Frankenberger ◽  
Frank Günther ◽  
Matthias Johannes Roggendorf

Due to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, dental treatment performed by undergraduate students at the University of Marburg/Germany was immediately stopped in spring 2020 and stepwise reinstalled under a new hygiene concept until full recovery in winter 2020/21. Patient treatment in the student courses was evaluated based on three aspects: (1) Testing of patients with a SARS-CoV-2 Rapid Antigen (SCRA) Test applied by student assistants (SA); (2) Improved hygiene regimen, with separated treatment units, cross-ventilation, pre-operative mouth rinse and rubber dam application wherever possible; (3) Recruitment of patients: 735 patients were pre-registered for the two courses; 384 patients were treated and a total of 699 tests with the SCRA test were performed by SAs. While half of the patients treated in the course were healthy, over 40% of the patients that were pre-registered but not treated in the course revealed a disease being relevant to COVID (p < 0.001). 46 patients had concerns to visit the dental hospital due to the increase of COVID incidence levels, 14 persons refused to be tested. The presented concept was suitable to enable patient treatment in the student course during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.


Author(s):  
TMGP Duarte ◽  
AM Lopes ◽  
LFM da Silva

Understanding how the academic performance of first year undergraduate students is influenced by home, personal and institutional factors is fundamental to delineate policies able to mitigate failure. This paper investigates possible correlations between the academic performance of students at the end of high school with their achievements at the end of first year university. Data for students in the Integrated Master in Mechanical Engineering (MIEM) program within the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Porto are analysed for the period 2016/2017 to 2019/2020. The students’ performance is measured by two metrics and the students are structured as a whole and by groups, according to their gender (Male/Female), type of secondary school (Public/Private), living place (Away/Home) and the rank of MIEM in their application list of options (Option 1/Option 2–6). The information is organized statistically and possible correlations between the data are investigated. The analysis reveals limited correlation between the two metrics, meaning that all students may exhibit good or poor results at the end of first year in MIEM, independent of their status at entrance. An unanticipated pattern is exhibited for the group Option 2–6, since it shows that, despite entering into MIEM without top application marks, the students in this group can perform as well as the others. This behavior is consistent over time.


Author(s):  
Sukesh Shetty ◽  
Neetha Kamath ◽  
M. Nalini

Abstract Introduction Academic stress and study habits are crucial indicators of academic success. At the moment, faulty study habits press on the students into academic stress. The present study was conducted to identify the academic stress and study habits of university students of health science. Methods This cross-sectional descriptive survey was conducted among 150 undergraduate students of nursing, physiotherapy, and pharmacy (n = 50 in each group). A stratified random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. The information on academic stress and study habits was collected by using the Student Stress Inventory and Palsane and Sharma Study Habit Inventory, respectively. Results Mean score of academic stress was found to be 75.353 ± 16.463. Pharmacy students had a higher level of stress compared to physiotherapy and nursing students (p = 0.013). Furthermore, the prevalence of unsatisfactory study habits among undergraduate students was 72%, with a mean score of 52.7 ± 9.152. Also, nursing students had a higher level of study habits compared to physiotherapy and pharmacy Students. There was no significant relationship found between study habits and academic stress (r = −0.048, p = 0.557). There was a significant association found between study habits and gender (p = 0.021), as well the association found between stress level and course type, Pre-University Course percentage, and first-year percentage (p = 0.044, 0.04, and 0.044 respectively). Conclusion Academic stress and poor study habits are prevalent among undergraduate students. This indicates strategies need to be formed to enhance healthy study habits and alleviate the academic stress of the students, mainly in professional courses; it is an urgent need.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 102 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Elphick

Digital capabilities are recognized as key skills that students must possess to learn and work in our increasingly digital world and have been the subject of a growing focus over recent years. Similarly, smartphones and, to a lesser degree, tablets are now ubiquitous within the student body, and many academics are beginning to leverage these devices for the purposes of learning and teaching in higher education. To further explore the possibilities of mobile technology, the iPilot project was created to explore the effects that embedded iPad use had on undergraduate students’ creativity, ability to collaborate with their peers and their perception of their digital capabilities. Focusing on the digital capabilities aspect of the project, this paper explores the results gathered. While the results are mixed, when combined with data taken from the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Digital Experience Tracker, it does appear that using iPads in the university classroom can have a positive impact on certain digital behaviors and students’ perceptions of their digital skills.


1998 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. W. Mines

The paper describes a final-year undergraduate course that has been taught at the University of Liverpool for the past three years. The main aims of the course are to introduce the student to the design of structures using multi-component (composite) materials and to the performance of such structures under impact loading. Given the complexity of generalized composite behaviour and of structural crashworthiness, a simple structural case is considered, namely, a beam subject to three-point bending. A feature of the course is that not only is linear structural response considered but also non-linear (progressive) structural collapse is covered. The course is split into four parts, namely: (i) analysis of composite laminae, (ii) analysis of laminated beams, (iii) local and global effects in sandwich beams, and (iv) post-failure and progressive collapse of sandwich beams. Static and impact loadings are considered. Comments are made on how the theories are simplified and communicated to the undergraduate students.


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