Enhancing the chemistry experience of pharmacy students

For a number of years, there have been concerns regarding the relevancy of teaching chemistry to undergraduate pharmacy students. Student engagement and satisfaction with chemistry-related areas, theoretical and practical, on Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) degree courses also anecdotally appears to be lower than for professional practice elements.

The project will build on MPharm project work led by Dr Smith over the past 3 years in the area of enhancing the chemistry experience of pharmacy students. This work included a pilot study to gain insights into MPharm students’ perspectives of chemistry in pharmacy and how they thought their chemistry experience and the virtual learning environment (VLE) could be improved. Some interesting conclusions were drawn from this work, although the study was limited to just one Higher Education Authority Institution (University of Portsmouth), in one country (UK), with few participants (n=122). Other studies have included the use of videos (reverse lectures).

The proposed programme of research aims to extend these studies, both in depth and breadth, including national and global perspectives from stakeholders beyond student populations..

This education-centred project focuses on the relevance and perspectives of Pharmacy undergraduate students with respect to chemistry. This part-time, distance learning PhD programme will take a multidisciplinary approach, a hybrid of science and social sciences.