First-year Pharmacy Students' Self-Assessment of Communication Skills and the Impact of Video Review

Abstract

Objectives. To determine the ability of first-year students to self-assess communication skills and measure the impact of video review on students' self-assessment. Design. Students participated in a digital video-recorded, counseling-simulation exercise and completed self-assessment before and after viewing their video. A faculty member evaluated the students using the same counseling assessment tool. Assessment. Correlation between the students' self-assessment scores and the faculty member's scores were poor (pre-video: r 5 0.38, post-video: r 5 0.46). The largest portion of the students overestimated their skills in comparison to the faculty member's evaluations (47.1% pre-video and 67.9% postvideo). Those in the lowest quartile overestimated their skills, while those in the upper quartile underestimated their skills (pre-video). Video review brought about an increase in the self-assessment scores for nearly two-thirds (62.1%) of the students. Conclusion. First-year pharmacy students had difficulty self-assessing, and video review increased their perception of skill achievement. A curriculum should include opportunities for students to develop self-assessment skills early in the program, and this should be reinforced throughout the curriculum.

Peer- and Self-Grading Compared to Faculty Grading

“…1,13 Quality of self-assessment may be influenced by a student's academic ability, as students who are in the lowest GPA quartiles tend to overestimate their skills while those in higher quartiles are more likely to underestimate them. 1,14 Possible explanations for the small differences between faculty and student grading in the current study may be that most of the participating students had a high GPA (3.4 of possible 4.0), and 4 of the 31 faculty members gave all their students during the study year a 4.0, which may have increased the mean faculty GPA.…”

“…Several studies indicated that using video recordings as an assessment tool improved students' self-confidence, interviewing, and self-assessment skills. 13,14,16 As in our study, using a detailed rubric-based evaluation form that includes assessment of professional behavior, performance on various skills, and knowledge also may facilitate the process. 4 Limitations of the study include that it was confined to only 1 academic year and there was a low response to the alumni survey.…”

Communications Training in Pharmacy Education, 1995-2010

“…The value of this intervention is decreased if the student is sent into the practice experience with no former communication skills training. 67,72 Although practice experiences in a pharmacy setting seem to be accepted as an effective way to improve interpersonal communication skills as well as some forms of written communication skills, in general they are difficult to arrange and draining to available resources such as educated preceptors, and there is a lack of appropriate assessment methods. 72,74 Portfolios are a method used to assess students' skill and knowledge development in pharmacy practice experiences, often including communication skills assessments.…”

Video Review in Self-Assessment of Pharmacy Students’ Communication Skills

“…and interpersonal skills, the students' pre-and post-video scores were significantly different (p=0.001 and p<0.0001, respectively) than those prior to video review. Although the correlation to faculty ratings did not improve in this case, activities such as these may provide students the opportunity to practice and utilize the videotape as a tool to assist in the recognition of strengths and weaknesses (Mort & Hansen, 2010).…”

“…The impact of videotape review on pharmacy students' self-assessments of communication skills was recently studied by Mort and Hansen (2010). First-year students in a pharmacy practice course participated in a digitally recorded counseling exercise.…”