Contextualized Class Improves Perception of Students About Spectrophotometry in Biochemistry Laboratory Practices

Practical work in the laboratory occupies a considerable proportion of students’ time in Pharmacy courses. Thus, it is vital for students who are taking courses in health science to experience handling practices thinking about its practical application. However, students have difficulty in correlating the knowledge acquired in other disciplines - especially, Analytical Chemistry - to Biochemistry. Here, we use an existing laboratory practice and contextualized it using a case-oriented examination and a dynamic discussion about spectrophotometry as a routine analysis in scientific research. With this goal, a group of students was submitted to a traditional practical class (control group, n= 65) while another one was submitted to an contextualized practical class (experimental group, n= 30). After a practical test, the scores of both groups were compared to each other. The results suggested that the contextualization of the practical classes could provide conditions to obtain technical competence of the students, increasing their comprehension about the relevance of interdisciplinary concepts and its applications.