Effect of social constructivist learning environment on student performance in online community pharmacy course

Abstract

Social constructivist learning theory emphasize that students learn effectively from interaction, negotiation and scaffoldings. It is more concerned in an online instruction, which has emerged its role in promoting effective knowledge sharing. However, there were few experimental studies about the online instructional strategy to achieve social constructivist learning environment as a whole, particularly in pharmacy education. This study was to develop online instructional course according to the social constructivist learning theory and to compare the social constructivist learning environment (SCLE) of the two different strategies; collaborative (CLG) and scaffolding (SCG) strategy. Moreover, student performances of those two strategies were also compared. Experimental research; posttest-only randomized groups design was conducted. In this study, the tool applied to assess SCLE was constructivist online learning environment survey (COLLES). Student performances measured as 1) the outcomes as immediate and retained learning achievement by developed examination 2) the process as time spent on the course, participation process by direct observation from the web course and 3) student perception and satisfaction by developed questionnaire. Community Pharmacy course at Chulalongkorn University was selected and developed to be online. There were 45 fifth year pharmacy students who voluntarily enrolled in this online course. The students were equivalently allocated into 2 groups. Each group was assigned to study through either CLG or SCG. There were 22 students of CLG that were assigned to study all of the contents. Each of 23 students of SCG was designed to focus on only one unit of the course. Finally, there were some times available for all students to practice sharing their own knowledge with others. All students should help each other to learn and develop their understanding of all contents. The result revealed that average perceived SCLE by COLLES was 3.75± 0.52 on the 5 point Likert scale with no significant difference between CLG and SCG (3.71± 0.53 vs. 3.79±0.53 respectively; p=0.584). The result did not demonstrate any significant difference of those variables measuring student performances between CLG and SCG. Therefore, developed online instructional strategies, both CLG and SCG were concluded to facilitate SCLE, and achieve student performances.