Problem-solving ability is a general objective of the graduation thesis practical course (multidisciplinary pharmacy research) in the final stage of the 6-year pharmaceutical education system.To make the practical course more meaningful for higher grade students,it was considered important to have those at lower grades do some preparatory study for it.With this in mind,Gifu Pharmaceutical University conducted a problem-based learning (PBL) tutorial on appropriate use of medicines as part of an introductory course in pharmacy for first-grade students in the first semester.The tutorial made use of scenarios with a simple background based on situations likely to be encountered in daily clinical practice.
Though it was the students’first experience of a PBL tutorial at the university,the results of a questionnaire administered after it suggested that it had been a good introduction to the practical course for them and had been useful.In groups,students also made product presentations which were evaluated by other students in their groups as well as instructors and students in other groups,and evaluations were subjected to customer satisfaction (CS) analysis.The results of the analysis indicated that“how a person speaks in a presentation”was an item that needed to be improved in order to raise the overall evaluation regarding the question“Was the presentation easy to understand?”This implies the necessity of learning how to speak clearly as a basic presentation skill.
The PBL tutorial in the introductory course to pharmacy appeared to be beneficial for students and the use of the new approach of PBL rather than a more conventional learning method had been effective.However,as criticisms,some students said there were too many students per group or that more scenarios were necessary,indicating that there was room for improvement in allocation of time during the PBL tutorial and other aspects.
