Improved knowledge retention among clinical pharmacy students using an anthropology classroom assessment technique

To adapt a classroom assessment technique (CAT) from an anthropology course to a diabetes module in a clinical pharmacy skills laboratory and to determine student knowledge retention from baseline.

Diabetes item stems, focused on module objectives, replaced anthropology terms. Answer choices, coded to Bloom's Taxonomy, were expanded to include higher-order thinking. Students completed the online 5-item probe 4 times: prelaboratory lecture, postlaboratory, and at 6 months and 12 months after laboratory. Statistical analyses utilized a single factor, repeated measures design using rank transformations of means with a Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test.

The CAT revealed a significant increase in knowledge from prelaboratory compared to all postlaboratory measurements (p<0.0001). Significant knowledge retention was maintained with basic terms, but declined with complex terms between 6 and 12 months.

The anthropology assessment tool was effectively adapted using Bloom's Taxonomy as a guide and, when used repeatedly, demonstrated knowledge retention. Minimal time was devoted to application of the probe making it an easily adaptable CAT.