Feed-forward: Paving ways for students' subsequent learning.

BACKGROUND: Written feedback assists students in refining their future academic work. However, students prefer having feed-forward instead of feedback by their instructors that are the comments provided to them on drafts prior to the actual assignment submission. The current literature describes two common ways to convey feed-forward: the foremost one is on outlines while the second is on drafts. However, no existing literature had been found yet for sufficient guidance on the ideal approach of feed-forward to facilitate students' subsequent learning. DESIGN: A Quasi-experimental study design was employed to determine the effectiveness of feed-forward on outline versus drafts. SETTING: Study was conducted in a private nursing institution in Karachi, Pakistan. PARTICIPANTS: 118 third-year undergraduate nursing students participated in the study. METHODS: Using consecutive sampling, 118 students were enrolled and equally divided in to two groups, each comprising of 59 students in the control and intervention arm. Control group received feed-forward through standard practice i.e. on their assignment outline while the intervention group received feed-forward on the draft of their scholarly paper. RESULTS: The performance of intervention arm had an upper hand over that of control wing as portrayed by their increased overall assignment and academic writing scores (of students on IELTs bands). The set outcomes also reflected better results in terms of the (reduced) frequency of visits to their instructors for clarification of written feedback. All in all, this research deduced that feed-forward on drafts is far more beneficial in contrast to that on an outline as it reinforces students' learning. CONCLUSION: The study findings affirmed that feed-forward is a useful strategy to enhance students' subsequent learning.

Evaluation and comparison of different brands of domperidone tablets available in Karachi, Pakistan.

Domperidone is an anti-dopaminergic drug used for the treatment of nausea, vomiting and dyspepsia. It has also been used in Parkinson's disease. In this study, five different brands of Domeperidone tablets were selected from the local market for evaluation of their quality as the local market is occupied of many competitors for a single generic. The evaluation of Domperidone tablets was done using various pharmacopoeial and non-pharmacopoeial tests. All the test results fell within BP specified limits for all the selected brands i.e. the results for Brands A to E for weight variation, thickness and diameter were satisfactory and within limits. For Brands A to E, the results for hardness and friability were also satisfactory i.e. 4-10kg/cm2and 0.1-0.6% respectively. The results for Brands A to E for disintegration were 2-6 minutes; for dissolution and assay, the results were 89-92% and 95-99% respectively. The results of similarity factor (f2) also showed that all brands of Domperidone have comparative dissolution profiles.