Integrating Labor Education into Medicinal Chemistry in Higher Vocational Education: A Curriculum Reform at Qingdao Technical College

Abstract

Background: In higher vocational biopharmaceutical education, Medicinal Chemistry is both a bridge between basic chemistry, pharmaceutical
preparation, and pharmaceutical analysis and an important vehicle for cultivating responsibility for drug quality and disciplined professional work habits. The course nevertheless faces several persistent problems: broad content coverage within limited contact hours, insufficient practice-based learning, weak representation of authentic occupational processes, and difficulty translating the values of labor education into observable and assessable behaviors.

Methods: Taking the 2024 Medicinal Chemistry curriculum standard for the Biopharmaceutical Technology program at Qingdao Technical College as the institutional basis, this curriculum-design study employed policy and curriculum-text analysis, a review of relevant scholarship, occupational-task
logic analysis, and curriculum mapping. The relationships among learning outcomes, teaching content, learning activities, and assessment evidence were systematically reconstructed. No unverified student achievement or teaching-effectiveness data were used.

Results: A four-chain alignment framework was developed to connect the occupational-task chain, knowledge–competence chain, professional work practice chain, and assessment-evidence chain. Drug-class content was reorganized into five task domains: structural interpretation and information retrieval; physicochemical properties and storage/handling decisions; synthetic routes and impurity risks; quality standards and testing decisions; and innovative design and professional ethics. The proposed implementation system combines a complete aspirin synthesis and quality-evaluation project with occupational micro-projects on β-lactam antibiotic stability, omeprazole storage, and related topics. Within the existing assessment weighting of 50% theory, 30% skills, and 20% continuous assessment, diversified evidence is collected for knowledge, technical performance, compliance, integrity, collaboration, reflection, and innovation.

Conclusion: The proposed reform foregrounds the defining features of higher vocational education—occupational relevance, integration of theory
and practice, school–enterprise collaboration, and the coordinated development of ethical responsibility and technical competence. It provides an implementable basis for subsequent action research and empirical evaluation.