The Learning Capability Development of Technical Pharmacy Students in Laws and Consumer Protection Course at Sirindhorn College of Public Health Chonburi, Thailand

This study was aimed to develop the learning capabilities of the students in laws and consumer protection course. The samples were 35 students of the 1st year technical pharmacy department at Sirindhorn College of Public Health Chonburi in the 2012 fiscal year. Data were collected from the self-evaluation questionnaire of learning capability standard in laws and consumer protection course before and after implementing a classroom action research of 4 steps, planning, acting, observing, and reflecting. In the planning step, learning problem was surveyed and analyzed. It was found that students were not able to apply the regulations or acts in order to solve related case studies after traditional lecture format. The student-centered teaching techniques were then used as an active learning tool in the acting step to mitigate this problem. These techniques included cooperative learning and experiential learning. In the observing step, the data were re-collected and compared using descriptive statistics and paired t-test. The results showed that after implementing the action research with student-centered teaching techniques, the evaluation score was increased from 54.97 to 57.43. Although it was a slight increase but could be concluded that an action research using student-centered techniques significantly developed the learning capabilities of technical pharmacy students (p< 0.05). The teaching techniques used in this research would be reflected and applied in the course plan of laws and consumer protection in order to improve the teaching and learning strategies for the next fiscal year.