Safe and effective prescribing requires more than biomedical knowledge. Factors such as beliefs, financial costs, and culture strongly influence treatment outcomes. Students therefore need not only pharmacological understanding (cognitive), but also the motivation to apply it (motivational) and the ability to reflect on their assumptions and adapt decisions to individual patient needs (regulative). Authentic learning supports these competencies by engaging students in tasks that reflect real professional practice.

Background information

Therefore, a two-year Social Pharmacology module that gradually increases authenticity was developed. In the module, learning is scaffolded from guided and structured engagement to more authentic and unscripted patient interactions. In the first year of the module, students are introduced to social pharmacology through self-study and classroom discussion of video-based patient case-studies. In the second year, students move to a more authentic learning activity by conducting direct patient interviews. The interviews are followed by structured reflections that focus on the cognitive, motivational and regulative learning processes.

Aims

This project aims to answer the following research questions:

• What is the effect of implementing patient interviews in a second-year Social Pharmacology module on student’s ability to integrate pharmacological knowledge with patient context in therapy decisions, through the activation of cognitive, motivational, and regulative learning processes?
  • Cognitive: What connections do students make between pharmacology knowledge and patient-specific factors when analyzing medication use after patient interviews?
  • Regulative: How do students recognize their own assumptions and describe shifts in reasoning following the interview?
  • Motivational: What motivations, values, and intentions for their future professional practice do students describe following the interview?

Project description

This project addresses the research questions using qualitative data. The data will be collected in the Social Pharmacology module for the (bio)medical and pharmacy bachelor programs, which includes about 75 students. The data consists of student reflections and interview analyses. The student reflections are guided by prompts designed to reveal cognitive, motivational, and regulative learning processes. After data collection, thematic analyses will be carried out.

References

• Vermunt, J. D., & Donche, V. (2017). A learning patterns perspective on student learning in higher education: State of the art and moving forward. Educational Psychology Review, 29(2), 269–299. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-017-9414-6
• Lee, J. H., Campbell, S., Choi, M. K., & Bae, J. (2022). Authentic learning in healthcare education: A systematic review. Nurse Education Today, 119,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2022.105596
• de Jonge, R., Wessel, E., van Houwelingen, A. H., & Pandit, R. (2025). Using patient videos in pharmacology education within medicine and pharmacy curricula. European Journal of Pharmacology, 177431. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejphar.2025.177431
• Herrington, J., & Oliver, R. (n.d.). An instructional design framework for authentic learning environments.
• Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper (Ed.), APA handbook of research methods in psychology, Vol. 2: Research designs: Quantitative, qualitative, neuropsychological, and biological(pp. 57–71). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/13620-004