Search

Introduction: Pharmacy educators are designing integrated curricula to implement teaching that supports integrative learning. How students experience an integrated curriculum, and the extent a curriculum supports the development of integrative learners, has not been well explored. This study investigates students' experiences and meanings of an integrated Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) curriculum., Methods: Focus groups were conducted with students from the MPharm program at a single study site. The research explored the following questions: what pedagogic strategies do students recognize as examples of integration and how does an integrated curriculum shape learning?, Results: Fifty-one participants took part over eight focus groups. Meta-themes identified mirrored the research questions. Findings suggest that integrative learning is experienced when teaching is purposively designed to be horizontally integrated between disciplines, when integration is made explicit, and when content is applied to pharmacy practice. Integrated assessments were considered to be cognitively difficult., Conclusion: Learners perceive horizontal integration as useful for promoting context and understanding how to apply science to practice. However, findings suggest the need for assessments to be better aligned with teaching to support the development of higher-order thinking skills., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background and Purpose: Lack of consensus regarding the benefits of an integrated curriculum, and ambiguity concerning what is being integrated within a pharmacy curriculum exists, but how an integrated curriculum is viewed, epistemologically, and subsequently incorporated into teaching practice has not been investigated. This study explores how educators conceptualize, experience and enact curricula integration both pedagogically and organizationally., Educational Activity and Setting: In-depth qualitative interviews with faculty members purposively sampled for maximum variation in disciplinary background and teaching experience were undertaken at a single site. Interviews addressed two research questions: how pharmacy educators understand an integrated curriculum and educators' experiences of it., Findings and Discussion: Analysis of the interview data suggests four essential meanings of integration: integration as a method for organizing teaching and learning; integration as enacted by self and others; integration as tension between conflicting knowledge domains; and integration as an impossible concept to apply to teaching practice. Analysis suggests that integration is an abstract rather than enacted concept and although integration is viewed as learner-centered, integration is complex and associated with a loss of in-depth learning., Summary: Differences in how faculty members conceptualize the purpose and effects of integration mean that the level and type of integration reported varied. A clearer understanding of the rationale for change, and methods for better applying theory of integration to teaching practice, may be needed to achieve curriculum standards required by bodies accrediting undergraduate pharmacy programs., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)