Identifying the core concepts of pharmacology education
Date
2021
Authors
Ngo, S.
White, P.J.
Davis, E.A.
Santiago, M.
Angelo, T.
Shield, A.
Babey, A.-M.
Kemp-Harper, B.
Maynard, G.
Al-Sallami, H.S.
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Journal article
Citation
Pharmacology Research & Perspectives, 2021; 9(4):e00836-1-e00836-13
Statement of Responsibility
Paul J. White, Elizabeth A. Davis, Marina Santiago, Tom Angelo, Alison Shield, Anna-Marie Babey, Barbara Kemp-Harper, Gregg Maynard, Hesham S. Al-Sallami, Ian F. Musgrave, Lynette B. Fernandes, Suong N. T. Ngo, Tina Hinton
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Abstract
Pharmacology education currently lacks an agreed knowledge curriculum. Evidence from physics and biology education indicates that core concepts are useful and effective structures around which such a curriculum can be designed to facilitate student learning. Building on previous work, we developed a novel, criterion-based method to identify the core concepts of pharmacology education. Five novel criteria were developed, based on a literature search, to separate core concepts in pharmacology from topics and facts. Core concepts were agreed to be big ideas, enduring, difficult, applicable across contexts, and useful to solve problems. An exploratory survey of 33 pharmacology educators from Australia and New Zealand produced 109 terms, which were reduced to a working list of 26 concepts during an online workshop. Next, an expert group of 12 educators refined the working list to 19 concepts, by applying the five criteria and consolidating synonyms, and added three additional concepts that emerged during discussions. A confirmatory survey of a larger group resulted in 17 core concepts of pharmacology education. This list may be useful for educators to evaluate existing curricula, design new curricula, and to inform the development of a concept inventory to test attainment of the core concepts in pharmacology.
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© 2021 The Authors. Pharmacology Research & Perspectives published by British Pharmacological Society and American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.