The impact of team-based learning on the critical thinking skills of pharmacy students

Introduction: Critical thinking is an important ability for pharmacists, but few studies have found improvements in pharmacy student critical thinking skills as a consequence of their education. Team-based learning (TBL) is an active learning strategy that encourages students to think critically to solve problems. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impact of TBL on the critical thinking skills of pharmacy students.

Methods: One hundred ninety students from the first two cohorts at a pharmacy school were invited to participate. The Health Science Reasoning Test (HSRT) was administered prior to the first semester and after two years of the TBL-based pharmacy curriculum. Student's t-test was used for a pairwise analysis along with Welch's t-test for unequal variances when comparing HSRT score modulation.

Results: There was an overall increase in mean HSRT score. However, some participants (29%) with initially higher mean HSRT scores did not demonstrate an increase. Nearly all (99%) participants demonstrated improvements of one of the eight domains of critical thinking evaluated in the HSRT. This corresponded with an improvement in score of the majority of participants (n = 115).

Conclusion: This study provides evidence that TBL improves critical thinking skills. More research is needed to identify the specific aspects of TBL that influence critical thinking.