Comparison to other international resources
Many disciplines have identified core concepts and developed concept
inventories over the past 30 years, with physics and biology notable for
the scope and depth of work. Hestenes and colleagues’ seminal work to
develop the force concept inventory (Halloun & Hestenes, 1985; Hestenes
et al., 1992) heralded a transformation of learning across the
discipline, with the rigour and reproducibility of the inventory
enabling the identification of effective, evidence-based teaching
practices (Deslauriers & Wieman, 2011; Hake, 1998). In the United
States, in biology, ‘Vision and Change’ was a National Science
Association funded endeavour to develop core concepts and related tools
for educators (Brewer & Smith, 2011; Brownell et al., 2014). The
current project aimed to follow in the footsteps of these seminal
initiatives, with the goal of providing educators with truly global
pharmacology core concepts, concept inventories, and related resources.
Of note, there are already a number of valuable resources for educators.
The Pharmacology
Education Project (Faccenda, Maxwell, & Szarek, 2019), an initiative
of the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology, is a
web-based resource with a wide range of information, teaching, learning,
and assessment tools. The
”Knowledge
Objectives in Medical Pharmacology” initiative sponsored by the
Association of Medical School Pharmacology Chairs (AMSPC) has provided
medical educators with extensive guidance on their pharmacology
curricula since 1985. The British Pharmacological Society has several
very extensive and pedagogically advancedcore
curricula, and has published work on clinical pharmacology for medical
students (Ross & Maxwell, 2012) and undergraduate pharmacology (Wallace
et al., 2021) . These invaluable resources complement our work in that
they provide a breadth of material, allowing educators to ensure
adequate coverage in their programs and courses, whereas our core
concepts work aims to provide focus for educators and program
directors/chairs to assure both students and stakeholders that graduates
have acquired the fundamental knowledge necessary to be successful in
their careers.