Abstract:

General Physics, Physical-Chemistry and Analytical Chemistry are subjects studied either in the first and second course of the Pharmacy Degree. Students find strong difficulties on assimilating these topics and some of them give up their study. Therefore teacher meets students on their first, second, etc.., registration indicating some improvements in learning methods are needed.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the differences on the learning behavior and on the success when acquiring competences on the above cited subjects, for students of the Pharmacy Degree in the Complutense University of Madrid, and in relation to the number of times they have been registered on the same subject. We have used for our study virtual platform Moodle, adjusting to an e-learning methodology.

We have developed several activities, based on numerical exercises and theoretical questions, through which students can easily interact between them and with the teacher. Different resources have been elaborated, which are at student’s disposal in the virtual platform, including documents with class summaries, solved problems, references and other necessary tools to perform the tasks and activities proposed in order to promote student participation. Activities are evaluated with usual indicators without considering whether or not students are registered more than once. These indicators permit us to evaluate the student’s attitude and progression on acquiring knowledge.

Results indicate that students registered for the first time are strongly involved in proposed activities and frequently interact with other scholars, which turn into a great success in learning. In this case the percent of students in a class that arrives to the minimum level of knowledge required reaches 95% been the rest those who drop out. Strangely, students fourth registered constitute the second group in participating in activities, although the latter get lower grades. Regarding students on the second or third registration, we come to the conclusion in our study, that they exhibit low level of participation, large number of them drop out and exhibit a wide spread in final marks.

In conclusion, new students, that are students firstly registered, are those who show better attitude, participate mostly in the proposed activities, positively interact with other colleagues, thus maximizing the principal relations involved, student/teacher, student/student and student/content. This group obtains biggest success in learning and best qualifications.

Keywords:

e-learning activities.