Design and Evaluatin of Educational Aid Simulator Software for Pharmacy Students

Abstract

Introduction: Education in pharmacy plays a significant role in the field of drug therapy as a key axis in optimizing the results of treatment. Therefore, pharmacy schools emphasize on the combination of theoretical and practical knowledge to improve the quality of education. One of the methods of combining theoretical and practical knowledge is to use simulated environments to complete the pharmacy internship. Methods: A computer-based educational simulation software was designed. The educational scenarios of this software were developed based on the practical experiences of students in pharmacy internships and include three main categories of common scenarios in pharmacies, including scenarios related to non-prescription drugs, prescriptions, and cases that do not require drugs. In this research, the evaluation of the software from the aspects of software quality and the progress of pharmacy students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences was investigated in 1403 Shahrivar. Results: The scenarios in the developed software include 47 scenarios. This software was designed and developed in MATLAB's App Designer environment. It was designed in three different user modes: simulation, exam and developer. The ability to work offline and its free of charge nature are among its prominent features. In order to evaluate the software, two main aspects of the method namely effectiveness and suitability of the software was done using a study on learners. The results of this study showed that the software was approved by the learners in terms of effectiveness (81.85%) and appropriateness (88.43%). Conclusion: The designed simulator software has provided an interactive learning environment for pharmacy students. The use of this offline educational tool at the beginning of the drug dispensing career can lead to a significant improvement of students' self-confidence and specialized knowledge in the field of clinical skills and dispensing prescriptions. Keywords: Software design, Simulation software, Pharmacy education, Computer-based simulation