The University of Sydney, Sydney NSW 2006, Australia.
BMC Med Educ. 2013 Nov 19;13:153. doi: 10.1186/1472-6920-13-153.
Pharmacology is a biomedical discipline taught in basic science and professional degree programs. In order to provide information that would facilitate pharmacology curricula to be refined and developed, and approaches to teaching to be updated, a national survey was undertaken in Australia that investigated pharmacology course content, teaching and summative assessment methods.
Twenty-two institutions participated in a purpose-built online questionnaire, which enabled an evaluation of 147 courses taught in 10 different degrees. To enable comparison, degrees were grouped into four major degree programs, namely science, pharmacy, medicine and nursing. The pharmacology content was then classified into 16 lecture themes, with 2-21 lecture topics identified per theme. The resultant data were analysed for similarities and differences in pharmacology curricula across the degree programs.
While all lecture themes were taught across degree programs, curriculum content differed with respect to the breadth and hours of coverage. Overall, lecture themes were taught most broadly in medicine and with greatest coverage in pharmacy. Reflecting a more traditional approach, lectures were a dominant teaching method (at least 90% of courses). Sixty-three percent of science courses provided practical classes but such sessions occurred much less frequently in other degree programs, while tutorials were much more common in pharmacy degree programs (70%). Notably, problem-based learning was common across medical programs. Considerable diversity was found in the types of summative assessment tasks employed. In science courses the most common form of in-semester assessment was practical reports, whereas in other programs pen-and-paper quizzes predominated. End-of-semester assessment contributed 50-80% to overall assessment across degree programs.
The similarity in lecture themes taught across the four different degree programs shows that common knowledge- and competency-based learning outcomes can be defined for pharmacology. The authors contend that it is the differences in breadth and coverage of material for each lecture theme, and the differing teaching modes and assessment that characterise particular degree programs. Adoption of pharmacology knowledge-based learning outcomes that could be tailored to suit individual degree programs would better facilitate the sharing of expertise and teaching practice than the current model where pharmacology curricula are degree-specific.
药理学是一门在基础科学和专业学位课程中教授的生物医学学科。为了提供有助于细化和开发药理学课程以及更新教学方法的信息，在澳大利亚进行了一项全国性调查，调查了药理学课程内容、教学和总结性评估方法。
22 个机构参与了一项专门设计的在线问卷调查，该调查评估了在 10 个不同学位中教授的 147 门课程。为了便于比较，将学位分为四个主要学位课程，即科学、药学、医学和护理。然后将药理学内容分为 16 个讲座主题，每个主题确定了 2-21 个讲座主题。对这些数据进行了分析，以了解各学位课程的药理学课程之间的相似和差异。
虽然所有讲座主题都在各学位课程中教授，但课程内容在广度和涵盖的课时方面有所不同。总体而言，医学课程教授的讲座主题最广泛，药学课程涵盖的内容最多。反映出一种更传统的方法，讲座是主要的教学方法（至少 90%的课程）。63%的科学课程提供实践课程，但其他学位课程的此类课程频率较低，而药学学位课程的辅导课程更为常见（70%）。值得注意的是，基于问题的学习在医学课程中很常见。所采用的总结性评估任务类型存在相当大的差异。在科学课程中，最常见的学期中评估形式是实践报告，而在其他课程中，笔试测验占主导地位。期末评估在各学位课程的总体评估中占 50-80%。
四个不同学位课程教授的讲座主题相似表明，可以为药理学定义共同的知识和能力学习成果。作者认为，每个讲座主题的材料广度和涵盖范围的差异，以及特定学位课程的教学模式和评估方式的差异是造成这种情况的原因。采用可以针对个别学位课程进行调整的药理学知识学习成果，将比目前药理学课程针对特定学位的模式更有利于促进专业知识和教学实践的共享。
