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Using Gaming Strategies to Augment Pharmacology Content Retention in a Doctor of Pharmacy Program
Author(s) -
Malhotra Ashim
Publication year - 2017
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.31.1_supplement.lb618
Subject(s) - memorization , pharmacy , curriculum , recall , perception , medical education , psychology , class (philosophy) , computer science , multimedia , medicine , mathematics education , pedagogy , artificial intelligence , family medicine , neuroscience , cognitive psychology
Objective 1) To enhance learner engagement in acquisition of pharmaceutical science content at a three year pharmacy program using interactive games like Jeopardy! 2) Augment learner recall of fundamental concepts and information retrieval, targeting “cognitive functions” in Bloom's Taxonomy. Methods The Pacific University School of Pharmacy implements a three year curriculum where renal, immune, and cardiovascular pharmacology is taught in the P1 year. We implemented a gaming strategy to 1) capture learner interest, and enhance 2) participation and 3) recall by instructing sixteen groups of P1 students to prepare Jeopardy! question using poste lectures. Five selected groups were invited self‐select a “leader” and provided pressure‐sensitive buzzers. The remaining groups role‐played “Alex Trebek”, asking questions in a serialized format. Student perception was surveyed to determine whether the activity was 1) helpful, 2) repeatable, 3) important for memorizing content, and, 4) analyzing content for exam‐emphasis. Results We used Qualtrics to build and analyze data collected from our survey. Surprisingly, although 73% of the 57 respondents indicated that exercise was useful, 32% argued for conducting the activity outside of the class time. However, 77% suggested that the activity be repeated. Student showed improvement in performance when some of the game content was used for the final assessment. Implications This study suggested modification of gaming strategies for use in the pharmaceutical science curriculum, with either a shorter intervention, or one that is implemented in fewer blocks.