Associating Student Performance in Pharmacy Practice Didactic and Skills-Based Courses With Advanced Pharmacy...

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Education
• Medical Education Assessment
• Student Performance Evaluation

Background:

• Identifying students at risk for poor performance during advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs) is crucial for timely intervention.
• Traditional didactic course assessments may not fully capture the skills needed for successful APPEs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the correlation between didactic course assessments and student performance in APPEs.
• To identify specific pre-APPE curriculum components that predict APPE success or failure.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective analysis of data from pharmacy graduates (2018-2020).
• Comparison of didactic course examination scores and performance-based assessment results with APPE performance.
• Categorization of students into 'poor performers' (final APPE grade <83%) and 'acceptable performers'.

Main Results:

• Six of seven pharmacy practice didactic courses showed a significant association between mean examination scores below 83% and APPE poor performance.
• Five courses were significant at a <78% threshold.
• Performance-based assessments requiring critical thinking were significantly linked to APPE poor performance.

Conclusions:

• A disconnect exists in identifying students with suboptimal APPE performance who do not fail didactic courses.
• Pre-APPE curricula should incorporate assessments emphasizing critical thinking to better identify at-risk students.
• This approach can help other pharmacy programs refine curricula for early student support.