Perceptions and Effectiveness of Use of E-Learning in Pharmacology Education

Introduction: E-learning improves learning by easy access to learning content, teaching material for revision and clarification at each learning sequence and controlled pace. Aim: The present study aimed to design an e-learning module in pharmacology and assess its effectiveness, acceptability and feasibility in undergraduate teaching. Materials and Methods: E-learning module was prepared with the help of Microsoft office, 2007 and iSpring Suite 8.3 software. Six learning objectives from a must know area of a subject (pharmacovigilance) were selected for the present module. Prepost intervention study was conducted on undetrgraduates (2nd year MBBS students) to assess its effectiveness through the class average normalised gain. Students and faculty perceptions were collected through SurveyMonkey tool. Results: A total of 124 (97.7%) out of 127 participating students completed pre and post-test assessment. A medium (45.9%) and high (76.6%) class-average normalised gain were observed in Short Answer Questions (SAQ) and ADR form filling exercise, respectively. Students perceived the module positively about the amount of time to complete it (73.6%), the pace of learning (84.0%), self-learning opportunity (98.4%), their future performance (91.7%) and achieving learning outcomes (98.3%). The analysis of general comments suggests students felt module was informative, easy to understand, interesting and systematically explained. The faculty perceived it positively about the appropriateness of the content (81.3%), self-directed learning resource (81.3%) and achieving the learning objectives (93.8%). Conclusion: E-learning module was effective in acquiring cognitive gain. Students and faculty perceived it as easy to understand, interesting and facilitating a method for self-directed learning.