Treffer: Hands-on practicals in pharmacology teaching at university level: Outpaced by computer-based simulations, or is there a (blended) future?

Traditionally, hands-on practicals form part of pharmacology teaching in (bio)medical curricula. Although shown to be effective and generally appreciated by students, they are increasingly threatened by institutional constraints. As a replacement, computer-based simulations are considered and have proven effective in students (science) learning. However, a blended approach consisting of an optimally balanced combination and sequence of both hands-on practicals and computer-based simulations may provide an innovative and well-suited teaching model to optimize students' learning experience in grasping, understanding and at the same time practicing with the often abstract concepts used in pharmacology. Here, we provide an overview of the identified benefits and challenges of both approaches separately and combined. More in particular, we speculate on the synergistic affordances of properly designed blended practicals, fitted to the requirements and expectations of both students and pharmacology teachers. We conclude that, despite the high promise, with regard to yield of pharmacology education efforts, there is a lack of evidence-based criteria for use in designing of optimally blended practicals in general, and pharmacology in particular. Gathering of such data, therefore, in our opinion should be a central theme of research efforts in the field of pharmacology education.
(Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Declaration of competing interest All authors disclose that they have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work.