title: Online debates to enhance critical thinking in pharmacotherapy.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the impact of teaching strategies on the complexity and structure of students' arguments and type of informal reasoning used in arguments.
  
  
  METHODS
  Students were given an introduction to argumentation followed by 2 formal debates, with feedback provided in between.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Four debate groups were randomly selected for evaluation. In debate 1, all groups posted 1 argument, and all 4 arguments were rationalistic and ranked as high-level arguments. In debate 2, members of the 4 groups posted a total of 33 arguments, which were evaluated and received an overall median ranking lower than that for debate 1. All debates were categorized as rationalistic.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Students were able to formulate rationalistic arguments to therapeutic controversies; however, their level of argumentation decreased over the course of the study. Changes planned for the future include conducting the debates in the context of patient scenarios to increase practical applicability.
authors.affiliation: School of Pharmacy, Curtin Health Innovation Research Institute, Curtin University, Perth, Australia.
authors.forename: Theresa L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Charrois
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Appleton
mesh_terms: D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction; D004358:Drug Therapy; D004512:Education, Pharmacy; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D013339:Students, Pharmacy; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*; D013850:Thinking
keywords: critical thinking; debate; online; pharmacotherapy