Development of a computer-based instructional system in pharmacokinetics: efficacy in clinical pharmacology teaching for senior medical students.

Abstract

The teaching of pharmacokinetics is acknowledged to be a key aspect of the core curriculum in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, but is also widely acknowledged to be a very difficult part of the curriculum to teach. In order to assess the potential efficacy of interactive computer instruction in clinical pharmacokinetics we have developed a prototype computer-based instructional package. The courseware contains a comprehensive learning system including tutorial, simulation, and problem solving components. To determine the efficacy of this approach we randomly assigned senior medical student volunteers enrolled in the fourth year clinical pharmacology and therapeutics course to receive conventional teaching in clinical pharmacokinetics and/or adjuctive teaching using the computer-based instructional system. There was a high degree of acceptance of the program and over the short term of the trial those students using the computer program scored significantly higher [35%, P less than 0.05] on the mid-term pharmacokinetics quiz. The data suggests that a computerized instructional system in pharmacokinetics may significantly improve the teaching of clinical pharmacokinetics to medical students.