J Educ Eval Health Prof.  2019;16:23. 10.3352/jeehp.2019.16.23.

Perceptions of team-based learning using the Team-Based Learning Student Assessment Instrument: an exploratory analysis amongst pharmacy and biomedical students in the United Kingdom

• Parthasarathy P
• Apampa B
• Manfrin A

• KMID: 2502176
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3352/jeehp.2019.16.23

Abstract

Purpose
This study aimed to evaluate students’ perception of team-based learning (TBL) amongst a cohort exposed to this methodology for the first time at a university in the United Kingdom.
Methods
Between November and December 2018, 26 first-year Master of Pharmacy and 90 second-year Biomedical Science students of the School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, United Kingdom were invited to participate and requested to complete a questionnaire that contained quantitative and qualitative questions. The quantitative component was based on the Team-Based Learning Student Assessment Instrument (TBL-SAI). It additionally contained questions about key student characteristics.
Results
The response rate was 60% (70 of 116); of the participants, 74% (n=52) were females and 26% (n=18) males. The percentage of agreement in the TBL-SAI suggested a favourable response to TBL. The overall mean score for the TBL-SAI was 115.6 (standard deviation, 5.6; maximum score, 140), which was above the threshold of 102, thus suggesting a preference for TBL. Statistically significant differences were not found according to demographic characteristics. Students who predicted a final grade of ≥70% strongly agreed that TBL helped improve their grades. Some students highlighted issues with working in teams, and only 56% of students agreed that they could learn better in a team setting.
Conclusion
This study shows that students exposed to TBL for the first time favoured several aspects of TBL. However, more focused strategies including team-building activities and expert facilitation skills could potentially tackle resistance to working in teams.

Keyword

Cohort studies; Pharmacies; Self-directed learning as topic; Students; United Kingdom

Figure

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  Fig. 1. Students’ responses to selected statements across 3 domains: accountability, preference, and student satisfaction. Numbers within bars represent the frequency of responses for each option of the 5-point Likert scale. TBL, team-based learning.

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  Fig. 2. Correspondence analysis between grade prediction and team-based learning activities. Correspondence analysis is a statistical technique that graphically display a 2-way table by reproducing the distances between the row or column coordinates (patterns of relative frequencies across the columns or rows, respectively) in a low-dimensional solution. It measures the associations amongst variables. The closer are the red and blue stars on the plane the higher will be the association (e.g., strongly agree and 70%–79% ). The red and blue stars within the green circle are highly associated.

Reference

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