Three Rounds of Delphi method
In Round One, expert group members were given the consolidated list of
74 candidate terms, which was produced by merging the outcomes of text
mining of five key textbooks with the survey responses from 163
pharmacology educators. Individually and without consultation, expert
group members analysed each term using the five core concepts criteria
and then voted as to whether they perceived each term in the list to be
a core concept of pharmacology education or not. Members were also asked
to identify any potential core concepts of pharmacology absent from the
list of 74 terms. The terms that achieved a minimum threshold of 80%
agreement by the expert group members were accepted as core concepts and
not discussed further. Terms that were agreed to be core concepts by
less than 50% of expert group members in Round One were rejected and
not discussed further. In Round Two, the terms deemed missing from the
candidate list within Round One were analysed and voted on using the
same criteria.
Additional online workshops were held between Rounds Two and Three. The
intention of these workshops was to refine the list of core concepts, by
clarifying areas of duplication, overlap, and hierarchical disconnect.
Expert group members attended one of two online sessions into which they
self-selected, depending on their area of expertise: i) pharmacokinetic
(PK, led by CG and ST) core concepts; or ii) pharmacodynamic (PD, led by
JK and LG) core concepts. In the workshops, the co-leads facilitated a
discussion on the small groups of related terms, which we called
clusters (for example, margin of safety and therapeutic
index ) that had emerged during Rounds One and Two. The research team
recommended a single term from each cluster to be included in Round
Three voting, and these recommendations were voted on by the experts
prior to the workshop. Discussions within the workshop focused on
recommendations for which there was less than 80% agreement.
In Round Three, expert group members analysed the terms that received
between 50-79% agreement in Rounds One and Two. The co-leads for the
two sub-groups (pharmacokinetics; CG and ST, and pharmacodynamics; JK
and LG) separated the terms into PK and PD groupings.
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Results
The exploratory phase of the project was designed to provide the expert
group with a comprehensive list of proposed core concepts, comprised of
both the terms most frequently found in the five key textbook chapters
and those identified through the survey of 163 international educators.