Students' assessment of problems in a problem-based learning pharmacology course

Problem-based learning has been widely employed in Medical Education. One of its main components is that students construct their knowledge working with problems. Therefore, in literature special attention has been given to the design of problems, while assessment has not received the same emphasis. To assess problems implies determining to which extent the resulting work fulfills the purposes that the designers of problems had planned, based on theoretical rationale. This study was developed to determine: if working with the problems allowed the students to carry out the expected learning activities; if the conditions in which they worked were suitable and if the problems were correctly structured. Participants were second-year medical students, enrolled in a problem-based learning pharmacology course. They were asked to assess each problem they used, by means of a questionnaire. The results suggest that when students worked with the problems they carried out activities related to elaboration of knowledge and activation of prior knowledge. They reported to have doubts after working with problems; this can probably be attributed to deficiencies in the students' prior knowledge. Furthermore, the type of problem in which students had low preference were those where they have to analyze tables and charts taken from pharmacological experiment reports; neither the time available to gather the information and to prepare the study issues was sufficient, nor was to study for other subjects. The information produced by assessment is useful for the designers of problems and as feedback to the educational process. The students' participation in the evaluation phase is a way to keep the congruence with a student-centered approach.