Student-led podcasts to enhance literature evaluation skills

Critical evaluation and understanding of primary literature is essential to pharmacy practice. This project evaluated student confidence and learning outcomes in a critical care elective course where podcasts were used as an active learning assignment for literature evaluation.

Third-year pharmacy students created a 15- to 20-min podcast episode that reviewed a landmark critical care trial. A pre/post survey was used to assess student perceptions of confidence in evaluating primary literature. A standardized rubric was used to assess literature evaluation skills in several domains.

Ninety-two third-year pharmacy students were enrolled in the critical care elective course, and 93% (86 of 92) completed the survey. Student perceptions of their ability to evaluate literature improved for all seven questions, including comfort in interpreting study methodology and applying findings of literature to patient care. Students scored proficient on most components of the standardized rubric, with ability to discuss results and conclusions being the lowest performing domain (78.2% fully proficient). After completing the activity, students felt more confident in interpreting results, applying findings, and orally presenting a journal article to peers. Most students felt the podcast activity helped them strengthen their literature evaluation skills and recommended this activity to a peer.

Third-year pharmacy students reported an improvement in confidence in the interpretation and application of primary literature after creating a podcast episode reviewing a critical care trial. Additional research with creation of podcasts or other audio/visual methods should be studied in the future.