Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Original Research Article | OPEN ACCESS

Flipping pharmacoepidemiology classes in a Saudi Doctor of Pharmacy program

Mona Almanasef¹ , Abdulrhman Alsayari², Dalia Almaghaslah¹, Fahad Alahmari³, Geetha Kandasamy¹, Rajalakshimi Vasudevan⁴

¹Department of Clinical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy; ²Department of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy; ³Department of Information System, College of Computer Science; ⁴Department of Pharmacology, College of Pharmacy, King Khalid University, Abha, Saudi Arabia.

For correspondence:- Mona Almanasef Email: malmanasaef@kku.edu.sa Tel:+966172247800

Accepted: 25 January 2020 Published: 30 April 2020

Citation: Almanasef M, Alsayari A, Almaghaslah D, Alahmari F, Kandasamy G, Vasudevan R. Flipping pharmacoepidemiology classes in a Saudi Doctor of Pharmacy program. Trop J Pharm Res 2020; 19(4):865-872 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v19i4.27

© 2020 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

Purpose: To examine student perceptions towards the flipped classroom approach and its impact on their learning and their course evaluation when compared to the traditional classroom method.

Methods: Five classes of the pharmacoepidemiology course were delivered using the flipped classroom approach. Student perception towards the flipped teaching method was measured using a satisfaction survey. Measuring the impact of the flipped classroom on student learning and the student course evaluation was achieved by comparing the midterm grades and the results of the standard end-of-course evaluations with the previous semester's cohort.

Results: Students’ perceptions of the flipped classroom were mostly favourable. The course and its various components were viewed more favourably in the second semester than in the first semester. Statistically significant improvements were observed in the perception of the topics covered in the course (p = 0.045), fairness of the grade assessment (p = 0.004), and perception of course feedback (p = 0.021). No statistical difference was noted between the midterm examination scores of the first semester cohort (24.53 ± 3.80) and the second semester cohort (25.15 ± 3.00); [t (22.54) = 0.53, p = 0.3].

Conclusion: This study demonstrates that using the flipped classroom approach for teaching pharmacoepidemiology can improve student satisfaction, as well as maintain their academic performance.

Keywords: Flipped classroom, Pharmacy education, Blended learning