Educational Testing and Validity of Conclusions in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Objective. To determine how colleges and schools of pharmacy interpreted the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education's (ACPE's) Standards 2007 definitions for core advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs), and how they differentiated community and institutional practice activities for introductory pharmacy practice experiences (IPPEs) and APPEs. Methods. A cross-sectional, qualitative, thematic analysis was done of survey data obtained from experiential education directors in US colleges and schools of pharmacy. Open-ended responses to invited descriptions of the 4 core APPEs were analyzed using grounded theory to determine common themes. Type of college or school of pharmacy (private vs public) and size of program were compared. Results. Seventy-one schools (72%) with active APPE programs at the time of the survey responded. Lack of strong frequent themes describing specific activities for the acute care/general medicine core APPE indicated that most respondents agreed on the setting (hospital or inpatient) but the student experience remained highly variable. Themes were relatively consistent between public and private institutions, but there were differences across programs of varying size. Conclusion. Inconsistencies existed in how colleges and schools of pharmacy defined the core APPEs as required by ACPE. More specific descriptions of core APPEs would help to standardize the core practice experiences across institutions and provide an opportunity for quality benchmarking.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Qualitative Analysis of Common Definitions for Core Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences

O’Sullivan

Danielson

Weber

2014

“…We were able to minimize or control for certain variables such as student demographics and lack of content changes, and use identical assessment measures with internal consistency reliability scores (KR-20.0.7) deemed sufficient for classroom examinations. 25 Therefore, making the switch to the POGIL strategy was the only major difference between the comparison groups.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…All data were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics, version 22 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY). The Kuder-Richardson formula 20 (KR-20), a measure of internal consistency reliability, 25 was calculated for each examination using DataLink Connect software, version 4.2 (Apperson Education Products, Renton, WA).…”

Section: Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Process-Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning Strategy Enhances Students’ Higher Level Thinking Skills in a Pharmaceutical Sciences Course

Soltis

Verlinden

Kruger

et al. 2015

Objective. To determine if the process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) teaching strategy improves student performance and engages higher-level thinking skills of first-year pharmacy students in an Introduction to Pharmaceutical Sciences course. Design. Overall examination scores and scores on questions categorized as requiring either higherlevel or lower-level thinking skills were compared in the same course taught over 3 years using traditional lecture methods vs the POGIL strategy. Student perceptions of the latter teaching strategy were also evaluated. Assessment. Overall mean examination scores increased significantly when POGIL was implemented. Performance on questions requiring higher-level thinking skills was significantly higher, whereas performance on questions requiring lower-level thinking skills was unchanged when the POGIL strategy was used. Student feedback on use of this teaching strategy was positive. Conclusion. The use of the POGIL strategy increased student overall performance on examinations, improved higher-level thinking skills, and provided an interactive class setting.Keywords: POGIL, active learning, process skills, instructional assessment INTRODUCTIONDeveloping students' critical-thinking and problemsolving skills is an educational goal common to perhaps every academic program or discipline. Critical to achieving this goal is the use of teaching and learning strategies that engage students and promote development of the process skills of application, analysis, and evaluation. Yet, despite a growing body of evidence demonstrating the efficacy and superiority of active-learning strategies and national reports calling for the adoption of these methods, 1-4 instructional strategies in science and math disciplines tend to be passive, leading to student disengagement and contributing to the "leaky pipeline" of science. [5][6][7][8][9] The reasons science faculty members give for being reluctant to adopt active-learning strategies include the significant amount of time needed to prepare materials, the reluctance to reduce the amount of material covered, and the perception that students are unwilling to engage in or prepare for these types of classroom activities. [10][11][12] In the pharmacy academy, active-learning strategies are recognized as important to achieving educational outcomes and, therefore, widely adopted in professional programs. [13][14][15] However, the use of active-learning strategies is not uniformly distributed. Faculty members in the biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences are 3 times less likely than faculty members in the clinical and social and administrative sciences to use these techniques. 15 Process-oriented guided inquiry learning (POGIL) is a teaching strategy that was initially developed in college chemistry and biology courses and is used successfully to engage students in the classroom and to promote learning. [16][17][18][19][20] The POGIL strategy begins with introducing students to a model, diagram, problem, or set of data and then requires them to ...

“…44,45 It was calculated using an online calculator (University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO). Effect sizes were compared with standards recommended by Cohen (trivial,0.2, small50.2, medium50.5, large50.8).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Mixed-Methods Analysis in Assessing Students’ Professional Development by Applying an Assessment for Learning Approach

Peeters

Vaidya

2016

Self Cite

Objective. To describe an approach for assessing the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education's (ACPE) doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) Standard 4.4, which focuses on students' professional development. Methods. This investigation used mixed methods with triangulation of qualitative and quantitative data to assess professional development. Qualitative data came from an electronic developmental portfolio of professionalism and ethics, completed by PharmD students during their didactic studies. Quantitative confirmation came from the Defining Issues Test (DIT)-an assessment of pharmacists' professional development. Results. Qualitatively, students' development reflections described growth through this course series. Quantitatively, the 2015 PharmD class's DIT N2-scores illustrated positive development overall; the lower 50% had a large initial improvement compared to the upper 50%. Subsequently, the 2016 PharmD class confirmed these average initial improvements of students and also showed further substantial development among students thereafter. Conclusion. Applying an assessment for learning approach, triangulation of qualitative and quantitative assessments confirmed that PharmD students developed professionally during this course series.