Is Scientific Paradigm Important for Pharmacy Education?

DIFFERENCES The current landscape of higher education is the result of a profound transformation in its nature and scope over the last 2 centuries. One of the driving forces behind this change has been the differentiation of academic disciplines.1 In the early 19th century, colleges and universities instructed only a few elite students in a small number of basic subjects like classical languages, mathematics, natural and moral philosophy, and religion. These subjects were considered to be the foundation for students’ clerical and “gentlemanly” pursuits.1 Having received training similar to that of their protégés, 19th century professors were relatively unspecialized themselves, and primarily focused their efforts on teaching rather than scholarship.1 Today, colleges and universities offer instruction in hundreds of specialized fields, while fostering disciplinary differentiation even further by encouraging faculty members to become adept at research as well as teaching.1 Just as disciplines rapidly proliferated, so too did the controversy surrounding these transitions. In the early 1900s, the growing number of academic disciplines raised concerns about the integrity of higher education. To some, disciplinary specialization translated into “scholarly disintegration” of American academics and a decline in the standards of intellectual excellence.1 These concerns brought forth a long-standing debate as to whether there existed many “academic professions” or only one, and whether universities existed as coherent organizations.1 These debates later yielded empirical work examining the structural composition of academic disciplines, much of it predicated upon theoretical frameworks developed from anecdotal observations of disciplines’ “progress” in achieving scientific breakthroughs. The idea that some scholarly fields are more “fundamental” than others dates as far back as fourth century BC when Aristotle established criteria for ranking fields on this concept.1,2 While philosophers of the 1700s and 1800s began developing classifications for differentiating academic disciplines, 20th century philosophers sought to understand why some disciplines “progress” faster than others.1 Kuhn attempted to address the degrees of progress made in various academic disciplines by distinguishing between preparadigmatic and paradigmatic disciplines. The foundation of Kuhn’s endeavor was the concept of “paradigm development,” or the degree of consensus or sharing of beliefs within a scientific field about theory, methodology, techniques, and problems.”3 Kuhn’s concept of paradigm development considered whether a discipline’s members conceded on prioritizing problems American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2004; 68 (5) Article 118.