Student’s perception on initial experience of flipped classroom in pharmacy education: Are we ready?

ABSTRACT

In Malaysia, the new teaching model of a flipped classroom is emerging in higher education with the aim of promoting student-centred learning. Hence the main purpose of this study is to identify the students’ acceptance level, their perceptions, and the impact of their initial exposures to the flipped classroom model. With this in mind, a survey on undergraduate students’ perceptions of the flipped classroom was evaluated at the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Surprisingly, there was a low degree of acceptance and unfavourable impressions of flipped classrooms among students. The reasons were identified to be the inappropriate use of the flipped methodology and the increase of student workload. In conclusion, the implementation of the flipped classroom method was not straightforward in Malaysia with a tradition of more didactic teaching methods.

KEYWORDS:

• Flipped classroom
• pharmacy education
• learning culture
• Malaysia teaching and learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Siok-Yee Chan

Siok-Yee Chan is currently a senior lecturer in School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. In teaching and learning, she is one of the initiators who embraces innovative idea of flipped classroom, eLearning platform and online tools in her teaching with award winning achievement and most importantly, positive students’ feedbacks. She has received a number of honours including, Special Creativity Award and Gold medal in National Pharmacy Competition 2018, silver and bronze medals in the international invention, innovation & design on e-learning competition 2017 and Gold Medal award from the Malaysia Pharmacy Society in 2008.

Yat Kuan Lam

Yat Kuan Lam is a lecturer in the School of Communication at Han Chiang University College of Communication, Penang. She obtained a Bachelor of Communication from Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Kampar, Perak between 2009 and 2011. She has also completed master’s degree in communication from Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang between 2013 and 2015. Her research interests include gender, media and cultural studies, creative industries and humanities.

Theam Foo Ng

Theam Foo Ng was born on 25 July 1979 in Perak, Malaysia. He received the B.Sc. (Hons.) in mathematics, in 2002 and M.Sc. in statistics, in 2006, both from the Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, Malaysia. He obtained his Ph.D. degree from the University of New South Wales, NSW, Australia, in 2012. He is currently a senior lecturer at Centre for Global Sustainability Studies, USM. His research interests include machine learning, pattern recognition, computational intelligence, image processing, disaster risk management, educational for sustainable development, and e-learning. He is a Member of the IEEE since 2011.