Majdi Garsan Algarsan
University of Hertfordshire, UK
Title: Audit of the introduction of MyMathlab for first year and second year MPharm students
Biography
Biography: Majdi Garsan Algarsan
Abstract
Numeracy skills are needed by both adults and children in their daily activities. Improving numeracy skills in whatever possible method is important for better performance in every work of life. Doctors, Nurses and Pharmacists need to be very skillful in numeracy in determining doses or administering medicines. Pharmacy students during training must improve their numeracy. Numeracy skills are important for the daily practice of pharmacists to be able to determine doses of drugs. There were incidents where due to error in calculation during the formulation of a medicine that cause the death of some pediatric patients. The peppermint incident is an example of the important requirement of numeracy skills. Medication errors cost the NHS about 750 million pounds annually and dosage errors from calculations are part of them which are mainly due to errors in calculations. The aim of the study was to find out the numeracy skills of MPharm year 1 and year 2 students at University of Hertfordshire and to find out effect of MyMathLab in improving numeracy skills of this group of students. MPharm student in year 1 and 2 were selected from the University of Hertfordshire. Research was done in two segments. Exams and questionnaire send to students by email. Students were given three sets of exam: Induction, Formative and Summative. Exams were marked and analyzed statistically using One-way ANOVA. The questionnaire was made using a programme called ‘Survey Monkey’. The questionnaire explored their demographics and what they thought of the numeracy support on their course. Statistical analysis such as the CHI-Square test was applied to the results from the online questionnaire to find out if the results were significant. Themed analysis was completed on the transcribed data for student`s feedback from the Questionnaire.