Generational awareness education as a strategy to prepare IPPE and APPE students for the modern workplace

There is limited literature on generational awareness improving the student-preceptor relationship and student experiences. The primary objectives of this study were to determine the level of generational awareness of pharmacy students and to examine whether didactic instruction on generational diversity leads to student-perceived improvements in learning and student-preceptor relationships.

This was a longitudinal, quasi-experimental design study, including pharmacy students at two different institutions from May 2019 to May 2020. A generational lecture was delivered to students in pharmacy years 1, 2 and 3 (P1, P2, and P3). Pre-, post-, and follow-up surveys were created and collected from each student cohort.

A total of 388 respondents were included in the pre- and post-survey analysis. Overall scores for each question were significantly improved in the post- compared to the pre-period (P < .001). A total of 124 responses were received for the follow-up survey. Seventy-one percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that understanding generational differences improved their learning, communication, and professional relationships during their experiential rotations. Majority of respondents (82.3%) agreed or strongly agreed that further education on generational differences should be provided.

This study indicates that providing education on generational differences to students is beneficial and positively impacts student experiential rotations.