Student Performance on Pharmacology Topics After Integrating Pre‐recorded Video Lectures as an Additional Resource

Abstract

During the 2018–2019 academic year, OMS‐II students at Rocky Vista University were introduced to pre‐recorded video lectures (PRVL) as a modality of learning and preparing for pharmacology clinical integration sessions. Traditionally, our university uses designated student assignments (DSA), traditional lectures, and clinical integration sessions (CIS) as methods of delivering pharmacology material. The purpose of adding PRVL was to introduce or “prime” students for future lectures and clinical integration sessions. In contrast to a flipped classroom, the PRVL simply highlight important concepts for lecture or introduce difficult subjects. They are meant to augment the other learning modalities, not to replace traditional lecture, which is typically seen in a true flipped classroom. We focused our research on assessing the efficacy of PRVL as measured by performance on exam questions. We hypothesized that access to PRVL would improve performance on pharmacology topics compared to previous classes at Rocky Vista University who did not have this additional resource. To determine whether students utilized the pre‐recorded video lectures, we administered a survey to all OMS II students, focusing on identifying which resources students used most often to learn pharmacology. Survey responses and student performance data were linked using participant numbers that were deidentified. Out of 271 total students, 97 students (a 35.8% response rate) responded to this voluntary survey. We found that 85% of survey respondents utilized the pre‐recorded video lectures >60% of the time. Comparing student performance on 30 pharmacology test items that assessed topics presented in PRVL, students who reported using PRVL <60% of the time scored slightly higher than students who used PRVL the majority of the time. In addition, 97% of students found PRVL to be a useful resource, but when asked whether it was the most useful resource of all modalities available, it was the least favored by students with only 8.2% of respondents preferring PRVL. These results are limited by small sample size, particularly in the group of students who used PRVL < 60% of the time (N=14). We hope to expand these findings by comparing cumulative performance on pharmacology test items before and after PRVL implementation.