A study on the evaluation of medical students perception and feedback of teaching-learning of pharmacology in a medical college.

ABSTRACT

Background: Pharmacology, like any other branch of medicine, is progressing by leaps and bounds. Consequently, reforms in undergraduate teaching are the need of the hour. Objectives: To determine the medical students’ perception and receive feedback on teaching and learning of pharmacology in our institution. Material and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study based on the questionnaire. A pre-validated, predesigned questionnaire containing 23 points was administered to fifth term medical students. Results: 73.43% wanted the faculty members to make more use of Audio-Visual aids for effective learning. 98.43% students wanted to include case based learning in the curriculum and 90.62% students wanted more of the clinical pharmacology to be introduced in the curriculum. 70% participants wished recent advances to be included in the curriculum and almost 80% were in favour of MCQs to be included in assessment of their academic performance. Only 26% participants felt rabbit eye experiments was appropriate and relevant to the present days of practical pharmacology reflecting a need for reforms. Only 10.93% students were willing to consider pharmacology as one of the subject for post-graduation. About 25% students felt the ideal teaching method for learning pharmacology was didactic lectures and group discussions and 81% thought the ideal teaching/learning media for pharmacology was the combination of LCD projector and blackboard. The most difficult system to understand was Autonomic Nervous System (53%). Conclusion: The study revealed the perception and feedback of the students regarding learning pharmacology were positive and constructive. It also revealed the priority areas for improvement.