Trial adoption of modified team-based learning for sixth-year pharmacy students and its learning effects

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effects of improving examination performance for sixth-year pharmacy students. A modified team-based learning (m-TBL) exercise was conducted using examination questions in the field of pharmacotherapeutics. In contrast with conventional TBL, the m-TBL used different sets of examination questions adjusted to have equal difficulty levels on all tests. The results showed that the average score on the team test was significantly higher than for the individual test in the m-TBL group. Using the pre- to post-test scores, the improvement rate between the m-TBL group and the control group, which self-learned the same task, was found to be significantly higher for the m-TBL group. Furthermore, a participant satisfaction analysis of the questionnaire indicated that the difficulty level of each test was evaluated as equal, whereas factor analysis and the test scores clarified that students who had high expectations of TBL reported higher scores. The findings confirmed that m-TBL is effective for improving the examination performance of sixth-year students.