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Integrated laboratory classes to learn physiology in a psychology degree: impact on student learning and experience

Physiology is a fundamental discipline to be studied in most Health Science studies including Psychology. Physiology content is perceived by students as rather difficult, who may lack vision on how to relate it with their professional training. Therefore, identifying novel active and more engaging p...

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Autores principales: Sánchez, Judit, Navarro-Galve, Beatriz, Lesmes, Marta, Rubio, Margarita, Gal, Beatriz
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10681090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38022968
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1266338
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author Sánchez, Judit
Navarro-Galve, Beatriz
Lesmes, Marta
Rubio, Margarita
Gal, Beatriz
author_facet Sánchez, Judit
Navarro-Galve, Beatriz
Lesmes, Marta
Rubio, Margarita
Gal, Beatriz
author_sort Sánchez, Judit
collection PubMed
description Physiology is a fundamental discipline to be studied in most Health Science studies including Psychology. Physiology content is perceived by students as rather difficult, who may lack vision on how to relate it with their professional training. Therefore, identifying novel active and more engaging pedagogical strategies for teaching physiology to psychology students may help to fill this gap. In this pilot study, we used the PBL methodology developed around a clinical case to evaluate psychology students’ experience and learning in two laboratory classes modalities. The aim of this study was to compare the undergraduates’ preference for laboratory classes taught either independently (cohort 1, n = 87 students) or integrated into the PBL-oriented clinical case (cohort 2, n = 92 students) for which laboratory classes were transformed into Integrated Laboratory Classes (ILCs). The students’ academic performance was also evaluated to look for quantitative differences between cohorts. We found similar overall academic scores for the Physiology course between cohorts. Interestingly, when we compared the academic scores obtained in the theoretical content from each cohort, we found a significant improvement (p < 0.05) in cohort 2 where the students achieved better results as compared to cohort 1. A subset of students was asked to fill a questionnaire assessment on their experience and found that 78.9% of them preferred integrated laboratory classes over laboratory classes alone. They consistently reported a better understanding of the theoretical content and the value they gave to ILCs for learning. In conclusion, our pilot study suggests that integrating laboratory classes into PBL-oriented clinical contexts help to retain core physiology contents and it can be considered as an engaging learning activity worth implementing in Psychology teaching.
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spelling pubmed-106810902023-11-13 Integrated laboratory classes to learn physiology in a psychology degree: impact on student learning and experience Sánchez, Judit Navarro-Galve, Beatriz Lesmes, Marta Rubio, Margarita Gal, Beatriz Front Psychol Psychology Physiology is a fundamental discipline to be studied in most Health Science studies including Psychology. Physiology content is perceived by students as rather difficult, who may lack vision on how to relate it with their professional training. Therefore, identifying novel active and more engaging pedagogical strategies for teaching physiology to psychology students may help to fill this gap. In this pilot study, we used the PBL methodology developed around a clinical case to evaluate psychology students’ experience and learning in two laboratory classes modalities. The aim of this study was to compare the undergraduates’ preference for laboratory classes taught either independently (cohort 1, n = 87 students) or integrated into the PBL-oriented clinical case (cohort 2, n = 92 students) for which laboratory classes were transformed into Integrated Laboratory Classes (ILCs). The students’ academic performance was also evaluated to look for quantitative differences between cohorts. We found similar overall academic scores for the Physiology course between cohorts. Interestingly, when we compared the academic scores obtained in the theoretical content from each cohort, we found a significant improvement (p < 0.05) in cohort 2 where the students achieved better results as compared to cohort 1. A subset of students was asked to fill a questionnaire assessment on their experience and found that 78.9% of them preferred integrated laboratory classes over laboratory classes alone. They consistently reported a better understanding of the theoretical content and the value they gave to ILCs for learning. In conclusion, our pilot study suggests that integrating laboratory classes into PBL-oriented clinical contexts help to retain core physiology contents and it can be considered as an engaging learning activity worth implementing in Psychology teaching. Frontiers Media S.A. 2023-11-13 /pmc/articles/PMC10681090/ /pubmed/38022968 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1266338 Text en Copyright © 2023 Sánchez, Navarro-Galve, Lesmes, Rubio and Gal. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Sánchez, Judit
Navarro-Galve, Beatriz
Lesmes, Marta
Rubio, Margarita
Gal, Beatriz
Integrated laboratory classes to learn physiology in a psychology degree: impact on student learning and experience
title Integrated laboratory classes to learn physiology in a psychology degree: impact on student learning and experience
title_full Integrated laboratory classes to learn physiology in a psychology degree: impact on student learning and experience
title_fullStr Integrated laboratory classes to learn physiology in a psychology degree: impact on student learning and experience
title_full_unstemmed Integrated laboratory classes to learn physiology in a psychology degree: impact on student learning and experience
title_short Integrated laboratory classes to learn physiology in a psychology degree: impact on student learning and experience
title_sort integrated laboratory classes to learn physiology in a psychology degree: impact on student learning and experience
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10681090/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38022968
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1266338
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