Abstract:

General Pharmacology is a compulsory subject of 3rd year (9 ECTS, annual) in the Degree in Pharmacy and in the Double Degree in Pharmacy and in Human Nutrition of the Faculty of Pharmacy in the University Complutense of Madrid (Spain). The Covid-19 pandemic forced to close Universities and to readapt the face-to-face theoretical classes to the online format. Particularly, the topics cell mediators and hormones were performed as virtual classes in the subject of General Pharmacology. For this purpose, videos were recorded and Power point presentations were made with the content of the subject; all these educational resources were available in the Virtual Campus. At the time assigned for the theoretical classes, the teachers connected through Google meet with the students to view the videos, clarify doubts and perform exercises. In addition, an online workshop on “Influencers and medication: a dangerous therapy” emerged as a result of the virtual interaction between teachers and students. The aim of this research is to know the opinions of the students about face to face teaching versus virtual teaching in General Pharmacology. The survey (Google forms) was conducted by a total of 84 students (81% female and 19% men). Results showed that the degree of effectiveness and efficiency of the teaching-learning process is greater in face-to-face teaching than in virtual classes. In addition, there is a lower sense of communication between the student and the teacher due to this lack of physical interaction and, the degree of motivation for the subject is much lower in the virtual mode. In addition, students spend much more time studying virtual teaching and they consider that the degree of difficulty to face a virtual exam is greater. However, the degree of satisfaction with the teaching materials was higher for virtual teaching than face-to-face classes. Finally, undergraduate students were asked to define in a single word what they like most and least about both face-to-face and virtual teaching in General Pharmacology. The most repeated words for face-to-face teaching were closeness, interaction and dynamism (most liked) and speed and schedules (least liked). On the contrary, the most repeated words in virtual teaching were flexibility, comfort and availability (most liked), and distance and lack of contact (least liked). In conclusion, only 20.2% of the surveyed students would choose the virtual training modality if they had to take General Pharmacology again.

Keywords:

General Pharmacology, remote learning, face-to-face, students preferences.