PHARMAVIRTUA: educational software for teaching and learning basic pharmacology.

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES have become important tools for teaching scientific subjects such as anatomy and histology as well as other, nondescriptive subjects like physiology and pharmacology (8–10). Software has been used to facilitate the learning of specific concepts at the cellular and molecular levels in the biological and health sciences (3, 11, 15). Although educational software, virtual environments, and e-learning are not new, their scope has been expanding to reach the more complex areas of science and higher levels of education. As a case in point, the British Pharmacological Society (6) offers access to 250 different software packages, not to mention what can be found by searching other databases such as Google, Google Scholar, or ERIC. With so many different programs available, there is a clear need for more rigorous research to provide a scientific and pedagogical foundation for the general content and usability of this software, focusing on an empirical rather than a descriptive software evaluation. Despite the wealth of pharmacology software found on the web, few of these programs are evaluated pedagogically. Developing educational software is quite different from developing noneducational software, such as business applications. Educational software should be designed to facilitate learning for its users, who may not already possess the knowledge being studied (7). In this context, our group developed “PHARMAVIRTUA,” a Creative Commons-licensed software package, to help pharmacology teachers by promoting an active and motivated learning environment for students. The present study evaluated the usefulness of the PHARMAVIRTUA educational software package for teaching and learning basic pharmacology. We analyzed subjective (student perception) and objective (student exam results) parameters as well as navigability, usability, friendliness, and other characteristics of the software.