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Impact of student- versus instructor-directed case discussions on student performance in a pharmacotherapy capstone
Jennifer M Trujillo1, Joseph J Saseen2, Sunny A Linnebur1
1Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Colorado, Aurora, Colorado.
Objective:
To evaluate the impact of incorporating student-directed (SD) vs instructor-directed (ID) active learning on student performance in a pharmacotherapy capstone course.
Design:
This 9-credit course was redesigned from exclusively ID case discussions to a format in which half were SD and half were ID. Student performance on evaluation questions derived from SD sessions was compared with that from ID sessions.
Assessment:
Overall, students (n=299) performed better on ID-session questions than on SD-session questions (78.7% vs 75.3%, correctly answered, respectively; p<0.001). For written evaluations, students performed better on ID-session questions than on SD-session questions (79.8% vs 73.9%, respectively; p<0.001). For verbal evaluations, students performed better on SD-session questions than on ID-session questions (79.5% vs 74.5%, respectively; p<0.001). After the course revision, student confidence regarding their ability to think critically, solve problems, make decisions, and pursue lifelong learning was high, and student and faculty feedback was positive.
Conclusion:
Student performance in a pharmacotherapy capstone course remained acceptable when a combination of SD and ID active learning was used, but the addition of SD learning did not translate to better performance on course evaluations.
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