The effect of online quizzes in improving physical therapy students’ exam scores in a pharmacology course

Abstract

Objectives: This study aimed to measure the performance of physical therapy students in the pharmacology course by using pre-and post-lecture online quizzes.

Methods: A total of 119 graduate students from the physical therapy program in their second year participated in this study. Pre- and post-lecture online quizzes, created using Google forms, were delivered before and after each lecture, respectively. Each online quiz consisted of ten multiple-choice questions about the three different pharmacology topics covered in the classroom from midterm to final exam.

Results: The average score of the post-lecture quiz was improved significantly compared with the pre-lecture quiz in all three pharmacology units: CNS (4.51/10 vs. 8.18/10) Endocrine (5.67/10 vs. 8.84/10), and Chemotherapeutics (3.27/10 vs. 6.77/100), p < 0.0001. By using the total percent of pre-and post-lecture quizzes, the results remained significantly higher in the post-lecture quiz (44.97% vs. 80.00%) (p < 0.0001). However, by comparing the effect of online quizzes on students’ performance between the midterm and the final exam, our data revealed that students’ grades on the final exam were insignificantly higher compared with midterm grades (85.37% vs. 86.58%, P-value <0.51). An experimental group that took the online quizzes had insignificantly higher grades on the final exam compared with the final exam scores of the control group that did not take the quizzes (86.58% vs. 84.21%, p-value 0.39).

Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrated significant improvement in students’ performance in their online post-lecture quizzes compared to their pre-lecture quizzes, but that improvement did not reflect significantly on their final exam grades.

Keywords:

• Physical therapy
• pharmacology course
• pre-and post-lecture online quizzes
• students’ performance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes on contributors

Khaled M. Hasan

Dr. Hasan is an associate professor of pharmacology and clinical pharmacology, teaches in several disciplines in the pharmacology and clinical pharmacology fields. His research interest include measuring and improving students engagement and progression in the classroom, in addition to study substance use disorder (SUD). Dr. Hasan is a Member of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology (ACCP).

Patrick Makary

Patrick Makary is currently a scientific Program Manager at National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NIH).