Boosting Pharmacy Foundational Science Education Through Game-Based Learning and Active Engagement Strategies

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Education
• Health Professions Education
• Biochemistry

Background:

• Foundational basic science courses are critical gatekeepers in pharmacy programs.
• Game-based learning (GBL) and active engagement strategies show promise but are underexplored in these courses.
• This study addresses the need to evaluate GBL in a first-year pharmacy biochemistry course.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of faculty-developed, web-based GBL activities and active engagement strategies.
• To assess effects on academic performance, Learning Management System (LMS) engagement, and student perceptions.
• To investigate GBL in a required first-year (P1) pharmacy biochemistry course.

Main Methods:

• A cross-sectional, descriptive study involving 117 P1 pharmacy students.
• Web-based GBL activities (Jeopardy, Rapid Fire, Crossword) deployed via Blackboard.
• Engagement measured by LMS metrics, academic performance by exam scores, and perceptions via anonymous survey.

Main Results:

• Students achieved a mean exam score of 81.59%, with 83.8% passing.
• A positive association was found between game access frequency and grade group performance (R² = 0.8241).
• Over 90% of students reported GBL activities were enjoyable, facilitated learning, and provided practice.

Conclusions:

• Low-cost, faculty-developed GBL tools can be successfully integrated into foundational pharmacy science courses.
• GBL implementation yielded high student engagement and positive perceptions.
• Findings support extending active learning research to basic science courses and offer a replicable model for health professions programs.