Relationships Between Remote Asynchronous Lectures and Summative Assessment Performance in four Pharmacotherapeutics Courses

Abstract

Background: Synchronous education describes when teaching, learning, and assessment occur concurrently and asynchronous education describes when teaching, learning, and assessment occur anytime. Remote learning is where teaching and learning occur via technological means. Objective: This report describes a remote, asynchronous learning method implemented in a 3-year, block curriculum, Doctor of Pharmacy degree program. Methods: Remote asynchronous lectures embedded with quizzes were delivered to pharmacy students at the end of their first professional year and beginning of their second professional year. Camtasia software and Screencast.com were utilized during portions of 4 pharmacotherapeutic-based courses. Students completed time-spaced quizzes embedded every 5 to 15 minutes throughout the videos and quiz scores were recorded. Discrete watches, number of total watches, and average number of video quiz questions correctly answered were examined for Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (ρ) with end-of-course summative assessment scores. Results: There were no strong positive correlations between discrete watches, number of total watches, and average number of video quiz questions correctly answered and end-of-course assessment scores (ρ range: –0.47 to 0.25). There were weak to moderate correlations within the rheumatology and dermatology assessment scores based on the Screencast.com content questions and the number of unique video watches (ρ = 0.40), average number of total video watches (ρ = 0.28), and average percent of quiz questions correct (ρ = 0.40), all of which were statistically significant ( P < 0.05). Conclusions: Remote asynchronous lectures including time-spaced quizzes were not associated with improvements in summative assessment performance. Mild positive correlations between remote asynchronous lectures and time-spaced quizzes may correspond with discrete questions on a summative assessment but those relationships may be influenced by the content within the remote asynchronous lectures.