Pharmacy student preferences on instructional strategies in a mental health elective

The purposes of this study included (1) a review of students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of instructional activities to improve knowledge of issues surrounding mental illness and (2) an assessment of students’ perceptions of instructional tools to de-stigmatize issues surrounding mental health issues. A non-experimental survey design study was conducted between 2008 and 2012 to identify students’ attitudes. The results of this study found significant differences in students’ perceptions of instructional strategies for improving knowledge and for de-stigmatizing mental health issues. The results of this study detailed students’ predilection toward authentic experiences in the form of patient speakers to improve learning about mental illness and to de-stigmatize issues surrounding mental illness. The use of motion pictures was also highly valued as instructional tools for teaching and de-stigmatizing issues surrounding mental health issues. In conclusions, personal narratives were presented in a variety of modalities including text (books), audiovisual (motion pictures), and the face-to-face first and second person accounts of patients and family members. Students’ perceptions of the instructional strategies corresponded with the delivery modality, ranking live experiences higher than multimedia and textual representations of personal narratives.