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. 2023 Aug 22;23(1):597.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-023-04581-x.

Comparison of pharmacy student performance in a self-care therapeutics course conducted as a flipped classroom on-campus and remotely

Bernadette Cornelison  1 , Beth Zerr  2
Affiliations

Comparison of pharmacy student performance in a self-care therapeutics course conducted as a flipped classroom on-campus and remotely

Bernadette Cornelison et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic required the University of Arizona R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy's Self-Care Therapeutics course to be taught as a synchronous, live online course. The course has traditionally utilized a flipped-classroom to increase student engagement and improve learning performance. The goal of this study is to compare student performance in a flipped-classroom self-care therapeutics course taught to students attending class on-campus versus online via web-conferencing.

Methods: This study assessed examination performance of 118 students that took the class on-campus in 2019 and 125 students that took the class online in 2020. Course design was similar between the two cohorts, with each completing assigned pre-reading, an associated short multiple-choice quiz, in-class small group discussions and in-class large group faculty-led debrief. Both cohorts took pre-class quizzes and three examinations to assess their knowledge. Exam, quiz, overall class performance, and student experience was compared for the 2019 on-campus attending cohort and the 2020 online attending cohort.

Results: No statistical differences were seen in the overall exam performance, the final course score, and the student experience between cohorts. Statistical differences (p = 0.02) were found between cohorts for the overall quiz performance, with the on-campus attending cohort performing slightly better than the online attending cohort (mean score of 88% compared to 84.4%).

Conclusion: Examination performance was similar for students taking a flipped-classroom course online and on-campus. Further research using data from multiple courses or from the same cohort, randomized, is needed to improve the internal and external validity of these findings.

Keywords: Course performance; Online learning; Pharmacy students; Self-care; Teaching method; Therapeutics.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
(A) Boxplot of student performance on exams. (B) Boxplot of overall quiz performance
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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