Premium
Scenario Based Learning for Cardiovascular Pharmacology: Explicit Development of Strategies to Solve Complex Clinical and Scientific Scenarios
Author(s) -
White Paul,
Naidu Somaiya
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.29.1_supplement.928.5
Subject(s) - critical thinking , attendance , test (biology) , creative thinking , mathematics education , psychology , analytics , computer science , creativity , data science , social psychology , paleontology , economics , biology , economic growth
In order to solve complex patient scenarios in hypertension and heart failure pharmacology, students must have i) a deep understanding of complex pathophysiology principles, “knowledge”; developed critical thinking skills to deconstruct the scenario, “critical thinking”; and iii) creative thinking skills to generate and test an hypothesis that fits the scenario well “creative thinking”. Many students fail to cope with novel scenarios as they lack skills ii and iii. A staged teaching design was implemented in which students discovered principles in early classes, then tackled scenarios with increasing complexity and resemblance to real life, and then reflected on their approach to developing critical thinking and hypothesis testing skills. Two self‐selecting sub‐cohorts were compared in two units of study: those who prepared and engaged (PE, n=94) for classes based on online analytics and attendance measures, and those who were not (NPE, n=60). The two sub‐cohorts were equivalent in that was no difference between PE and NPE cohorts in average scores from the previous semester across all units of study (mean 70 vs 67, t‐test, P>0.05). PE students improved in knowledge scores from first scenario to last by 18%, their critical thinking scores improved by 24% and creative thinking by 49%. PE students performed significantly better than NPE students on all three measures (ANOVA, p<0.001), and survey responses indicated that PE students developed effective strategies to solve clinical scenarios. This study indicates that a staged, scenario‐based learning approach can help students develop skills that will allow them to deal with novel complex scenarios in cardiovascular pharmacology.