World Café Teaching on Pharmacology Academic Performance and Perceived Self-Regulated Learning Among Nursing Students

This exploratory two-round cluster-randomised trial examined the World Café teaching method, a structured participatory approach, in pharmacology education for third-year undergraduate nursing students. The study was designed to assess whether the World Café method, compared with traditional lecture-based instruction, was associated with pharmacology final examination performance-including the total examination score (primary outcome), accurate knowledge identification and discrimination, and knowledge integration, reasoning and clinical decision-making (secondary/exploratory outcomes)-and with students' perceptions of teaching and perceived benefits for self-regulated learning (SRL), measured by self-developed questionnaires. The trial was exploratory and was not powered to confirm a treatment effect. Eight classes were randomised across two rounds (four classes per round; three control classes and one experimental class per round). The experimental classes received World Café case-discussion integrated into the same core pharmacology content, while control classes received traditional lectures. The primary outcome was analysed with linear mixed models with class as a random intercept, with small-sample correction and a within-round exact permutation test. Questionnaires were administered in the experimental group only.