QUALITY OF GROUP WORK LEARNING: PHARM. D. STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCE FROM SAUDI ARABIA

Abstract

Introduction: Group work techniques are used widely for learning and assessment throughout university courses, but they have not been validated for quality purposes in any Saudi college of pharmacy. Materials and methods: To explore the quality of group work techniques, a Student Attitudes toward Group Environment (SAGE) questionnaire with a component for 'quality of product and process' was used as a tool for data collection from all undergraduate Pharm. D. students in Princess Nourah Bint Abdul Rahman University during the period of May-September 2018. Descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) were used for presenting the results. Result: From all 703 Pharm. D. students enrolled, only 179 participated in the shortened questionnaire. The results indicated positive agreement to the items under investigation. Conclusion: The findings of the study showed that this type of learning process met quality criteria from the students’ perspectives. Future work should include investigating the correlation with the results of the comprehensive pharmacy practice exam in Saudi Arabia to show if group work helped students achieve acceptable marks.