Background and purpose

Teaching and learning the spectrum of activity (SOA) of antimicrobial agents can be a challenge in pharmacy education. This study describes the implementation and assessment of a novel tool to aid in the instruction of SOA. Physical manipulatives were used as an active-learning technique to model bacterial pathogens for antimicrobial SOA in an infectious diseases (ID) integrated medication therapy management course.

Educational activity and setting

Pharmacy students enrolled in two consecutive years of the ID course were provided the opportunity to utilize a set of manipulatives for in-class activities and out-of-class practice. The manipulatives were small, colored building blocks that could be used to model bacterial pathogens for antimicrobial SOA. A key was included with each set of blocks, color-coding each block to represent a different bacterial pathogen or pathogen group. Blocks were used during classroom instruction to model the SOA of antimicrobial agents, compare/contrast SOA between medications, and model bacterial pathogens requiring empiric coverage for various infections, allowing students to produce “bug-drug” matches. Course data from the previous year was utilized to compare pre-implementation aggregate performance with post-implementation data. Performance on SOA-related questions was assessed during the course, using an independent samples t-test.

Findings

The intervention group exhibited a statistically significant increased mean score on test questions relating to SOA as compared to the control group.

Summary

The use of manipulatives was associated with improved performance on SOA-related questions in an integrated ID course of pharmacy students.

中文翻译：

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将物理操作纳入综合药物治疗课程以加强抗菌谱

背景和目的

教授和学习抗菌药物的活性谱 (SOA) 可能是药学教育中的一个挑战。本研究描述了一种有助于 SOA 教学的新工具的实施和评估。在传染病 (ID) 综合药物治疗管理课程中，物理操作被用作一种主动学习技术，为抗菌 SOA 的细菌病原体建模。

教育活动和环境

连续两年注册 ID 课程的药学学生有机会在课堂活动和课外练习中使用一套操作方法。这些操作是小的、彩色的构建块，可用于为抗菌 SOA 的细菌病原体建模。每组块都包含一个键，对每个块进行颜色编码以代表不同的细菌病原体或病原体组。在课堂教学中使用块来模拟抗菌药物的 SOA，比较/对比药物之间的 SOA，并模拟需要经验性覆盖各种感染的细菌病原体，使学生能够产生“虫药”匹配。上一年的课程数据用于比较实施前的总体绩效和实施后的数据。t检验。

发现

与对照组相比，干预组在与 SOA 相关的测试问题上的平均分数在统计学上显着增加。

概括

在药学学生的综合 ID 课程中，操作的使用与 SOA 相关问题的表现提高有关。