Background Chemotherapeutic pharmacology is traditionally a challenging subject to both teach and learn. This study aimed to assess a suite of e-learning tools regarding the mechanisms of action of chemotherapy drugs, and the subsequent effects on learning in two cohorts (control and intervention) of undergraduate pharmacy students in Australia.

Methods The intervention group had access to the e-learning tools in addition to the traditional didactic teaching delivered to the control group. To determine the educational benefit of the e-learning tools, we evaluated student level of understanding demonstrated in the short-answer questions related to chemotherapy mechanisms. Structure of the Observed Learning Outcome (SOLO) taxonomy was used to classify students’ exam responses.

Results There was overall improvement in student total exam scores for the intervention group. However, the most significant improvement was evident in the chemotherapy scores for the intervention group who demonstrated a superior level of understanding of mechanisms of action of the three chemotherapy drugs, cytarabine, mitomycin C and trastuzumab. Students in the intervention group performed significantly better than the control cohort with respect to short answer questions on cytarabine and trastuzumab (p < 0.05), but most notably on the mechanism of action of cytarabine (p = 0.02).

Discussion E-learning tools were shown to improve student level of understanding, as scored by the SOLO taxonomy, in the learning and teaching of chemotherapeutic pharmacology.