A Questionnaire Based Study to Evaluate Change in Attitude, Perception and Feedback of Second Year Medical Students with Respect to Their Academic Terms on Teaching-Learning Methodology and Evaluation Methods in Pharmacology

Background: Pharmacology is one of the most evolvingbranches in medical sciences. Hence not only notions butalso the teaching methodologies and evaluation methodsneed to be kept under continuous reform. Feedback fromthe medical students, for whom this reform is meantoffers continuous directive for the improvement.Aims: To assess the change in student’s attitude,perception & feedback on teaching-learning methodologyand evaluation methods in Pharmacology at the end ofthis subject course.Materials and Methods: Total 140 second year medicalstudents studying at Smt.Kashibai Navale medical college,Pune were selected; administered with a prevalidatedquestionnaire containing 25 questions in their firstsemester and same questionnaire with little modificationsat the end of third (last) semester. Suggestions werealso asked regarding the quality of good pharmacologyteachers and modification in pharmacology teachingmethods.Statistics: Descriptive statistics were used and resultswere expressed as percentage.Results: Most of the students found CVS (49.25%) as mostinteresting topic in first semester whereas Endocrines(53.2%) in last semester. Opined, more or less similartopics i.e. Chemotherapy (54.06%, 53.5%), CVS (52.52%,54.3%), CNS (44.15%, 47%) and endocrines (37.3%,43.1%) to be most useful topics in internship in both thesemesters. 50.58% students preferred clinical/patientrelated pharmacology and 47.36% mentioned use ofaudiovisual aided lectures in last semester. Prescriptionwriting and criticism of prescription were amongst mostuseful and interesting in both the semesters. Students’interest in microteaching and problem based learningcontinued and increased in last semester whereasseminars, quiz and museum studies were mentionedas good adjuvant to routine teaching. Periodic writtentests and theory viva at the end of a particular systemwere mentioned as effective evaluation methods. Evenin last semester student’s continuous interest wasfound in gathering information on recent advances inpharmacology and gave favorable response to inclusionof new drug information during theory classes.Conclusions: The changes made in the Pharmacologyteaching-learning methods with reference to students’response in first semester significantly evoked theirinterest in learning pharmacology; stressing need forcontinuous reform.