OBJECTIVES: Podcasts (recorded lectures) can be beneficial for all students, particularly English as a second language students who face language barriers when learning in another language.  There is limited study on pharmacy student perceptions and podcasts, none from an international perspective. The primary objective was to describe pharmacy students’ perceptions on the usefulness of podcasting and a secondary objective was to compare perceptions between native vs. non-native English speakers in a pharmacy research course. METHODS: All first year pharmacy students (n=157) attending a Research Methods course in 2012 were invited to participate in a survey, which utilized a 4-point Likert Scale (1= strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=agree, and 4=strongly agree). Podcasts covered all course topics such as Applied Statistics, Odds Ratio and Relative Risk, Case Reports, Observational Studies, Randomized Controlled Trials, and Economic Evaluations. Descriptive statistics and t-tests were utilized to analyze the data in SPSS. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board. RESULTS: 73% of the class completed the survey (40.2% Caucasian, 32% Asian and 25% African American). 24.1% identified themselves as non-native English speakers, 94.6% lived in the US for greater or equal to 5 years and 66.1% communicated in English at home. The majority of students agreed/strongly agreed that podcasts helped them to prepare for exams (92.9%), podcasts were a useful learning tool (91.2%), promoted understanding of course material (89.3%), helped with missed concepts (96.4%), and facilitated note-taking at their own pace (92.2%) with mean scores 3.34, 3.27, 3.27, 3.48 and 3.48, respectively. Results of the t-test revealed that there is no statistically significant difference between native vs. non-native English speaking students in their perceptions of podcast usefulness (p>.05). CONCLUSIONS: Podcasts are beneficial to a majority of students, despite their language background. Podcasts have the potential to be a valuable learning tool for students taking a research methods course.