An Attempt to Measure Presentation Skill Acquisition Using Peer and Self-evaluation.

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Education
• Medical Pedagogy
• Active Learning Strategies

Background:

• Humanistic education and active learning are increasingly vital in pharmacy programs.
• Ensuring assessment validity is challenging due to the subjective nature of performance evaluations.
• Problem-based learning (PBL) tutorials are used for case and prescription analysis in pharmacy education.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of peer evaluation in enhancing presentation skills among pharmacy students.
• To analyze the impact of repeated peer feedback on student performance and self-perception.

Main Methods:

• Fifth-year pharmacy students at Tohoku Pharmaceutical University participated in PBL tutorials.
• Students conducted 20 presentation and discussion sessions over 10 weeks, presenting at least twice.
• Peer evaluations were collected and analyzed for 863 students between 2012 and 2014.

Main Results:

• 70% to 86% of students demonstrated improved peer evaluation scores between their first and second presentations.
• Students who initially received lower scores showed significant score increases in subsequent evaluations.
• A high percentage of students (87%) reported positive self-perceived skill acquisition, but this did not correlate with peer evaluation results.

Conclusions:

• Peer evaluation effectively enhances presentation skills and fosters critical assessment abilities in pharmacy students.
• Repeated presentations and peer feedback contribute to students' self-awareness of their growth and confidence.
• While self-assessments indicate perceived improvement, peer evaluations offer a more objective measure of skill development.