An Active Learning Approach to Develop Student ́S Soft Skills

Abstract

Introduction Future pharmacists should have the ability to communicate their knowledge clearly, both to specialists and non-specialists. Additionally, despite being considered core competences to potentiate their development as healthcare professionals, soft skills are still unrepresentative in Pharmacy education. To train these competences, we suggest an assignment to develop students' soft skills while keeping them motivated and involved in the learning process. Materials and methods Pharmacology II is a curricular unit of the Integrated Master on Pharmaceutical Sciences of the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Porto, Portugal (4th year, 1st semester). Students (2-3/group) were asked to present a relevant topic in the context of endocrine pharmacology through an informative material of their choice (flyer, poster, web page, short video, PowerPoint presentation, social media post...) to effectively inform a specific target population. At the end of the semester, students were asked to anonymously respond a survey to grade the contribution of this assignment to the acquisition of certain skills (1-low to 5-high). Results 69/156 students responded to the survey. When the higher grade (5) was considered, 42% of students recognised that the assignment has most contributed to develop interpersonal communication, 39% to develop creative thinking and 36% to develop the ability to plan and manage time. If a rating higher than 4 was considered, the percentages of students highlighting these skills doubled (81%, 80%, 72%, respectively), while the development of critical thinking became the skill to which this assignment most contributed (84%). Also, 77% of the students considered that this assignment contributed to their education as a future pharmacist (grade>4). Conclusions We report an assignment that contributes to develop soft skills in pharmacy students, while engaging them in the learning process since they decide on the final format of deliver and become aware of their role in health literacy.