Strengthening Deep Learning in a Professional Doctorate Pharmaceutics Course: Perceived Impact on Students’Self-Efficacy

Abstract

To stimulate and strengthen a culture of deep learning associated with problem-solving, two complementary instructional strategies, productive failure and instructor-designed concept maps, were introduced to pharmacy students in an introductory pharmaceutical course. This study describes the impact of the two instructional deep-learning strategies on pharmacy students’ perceptions and beliefs. The analysis of a proposed path model indicated that students’ perceived impact of the two instructional strategies were significant predictors of self-efficacy. The results of this study indicated that the combination of the productive failure and instructor-designed concept maps significantly impacted students’ perceptions and beliefs on their ability to perform well in the course. The qualitative data related to the perceived strengths and weaknesses provided additional support for these findings and revealed more details regarding the perceived benefits of this instructional strategy. Future research will focus on studentgenerated concept maps’ impact on transfer problems associated with productive failure.