Differentiated Learning in an Advanced Cardiovascular Pharmacology Course

NS Freestone. Kingston University, Pharmacy, KT1 2EE, UK

In 2007 the Higher Education Academy’s Centre for Bioscience in the UK, published a report entitled: “Differentiated Learning: Stretching the Most Able”. This suggested that universities, whilst justifiably seeking to widen student participation, might be in danger of neglecting more able students “due to special provisions being almost always made available to weaker students”.

In order to address the possible inequity inherent in this situation the following strategy was adopted. Third Year students achieving sufficiently high grades in core physiology/pharmacology modules were allowed to participate in an optional module containing more advanced material. Student attainment in this selective module (~ 30 students) was then compared to the attainment of the same students in a core module containing the whole cohort (~140 students). A potential confounding factor in the interpretation of the results was that student performance was being compared over different sized modules. To account for this, performance on the optional module when there was no selection for ability was also recorded. Additionally, in those years when students were not selected on ability the attainment of lower achieving students in the optional module and core module was also compared. Student\'s paired t-tests were used to test for significant differences.

When selected on the grounds of previous academic performance, students (n=20) achieved higher marks (p= 0.001) in the option module (69 ± 2 %) than they did in a core module (58 ± 2 %) in which the whole year cohort participated. When students were not selected by ability there was no increase in performance over two years for the more able students (eg. 69 ± 1 vs 69 ± 2 %; n = 10; p=0.95). Furthermore, lower-achieving students also saw no improvement in their performance in the options module compared to the core module (48 ± 2 vs 52 ± 4 %; n=10; p=0.12).

This suggests that students selected to be academically stretched improve their marks compared to a setting where they are not so targeted.