Outcomes and Experiential Education

Abstract

Outcomes-based assessment in education involves continuous use of assessment measures to provide feedback about the efficacy of the curricular structure, content, and teaching methods. This process is initiated by establishing educational outcome statements for the Doctor of Pharmacy curriculum, selecting assessment methods that most appropriately measure the educational outcomes, and establishing a learning environment that is congruent with both the outcomes and assessment methods. To ensure a successful continuous outcomes-based assessment process, a systematic assessment plan should be prepared that focuses the process by identifying only the most essential hypotheses, uses a practical yet appropriate methodology, ensures efficient data collection, includes data analyses that link the educational outcomes to the learning environment, and promotes timely development and implementation of an action plan. An overview of outcomes-based education and the use of outcomes-based practice experiences in pharmacy education is presented.

Evaluation of Pharmaceutical Care Opportunities Within an Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience

“…Thus, both the extent of the learning opportunity and the nature of the learning were examined to determine the effectiveness of the learning environment. 15 The activities of interest included both direct and indirect pharmaceutical care activities. A summative method was utilized to obtain the relevant student data, using a snapshot approach of students' work at the end of the clerkship experience to quantify the outputs.…”

An Assessment System for Mapping CAPE Outcomes in an Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experience Program

“…In the mean time, it seems reasonable to continue to use the 1998 Educational Outcomes-based system described in this paper. Other lists of pharmacy practice competencies that could be used to create assessment tools have been published but are either foreign (may not represent pharmacy practice in the United States), 14 represent the thoughts of small groups of individuals or single organizations, 3,15,16 address specific rotation types, 17 or contain too many elements to be practical. 3 The 1998 CAPE document was developed on earlier work supported by national organizations including AACP, the American Pharmacists Association, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and, for the moment, remains the most valid expression of the competencies required for pharmacy practice suitable for assessment purposes.…”

Academic Entitlement in Pharmacy Education

“…One way to curb this phenomenon is to implement "progress," "milestone," or "longitudinal" assessments that measure students' ability to integrate their learning over time and across courses. 36 These types of examinations may reduce the emphasis on course-specific grades and require students to be accountable for learning and retaining program content.…”