Reluctance to Fail and the Challenges Preceptors Face in Experiential Assessment

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Education
• Experiential Learning
• Healthcare Professional Training

Background:

• Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences (APPEs) are critical for developing practice-ready pharmacists.
• The experiential component of pharmacy curricula is essential for student development.
• Preceptor perspectives on student evaluation, particularly failing students, are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate preceptor opinions regarding the failing of APPE students.
• To identify reasons behind preceptor hesitancy in assigning failing grades.
• To understand the prevalence of failing APPE students in pharmacy education.

Main Methods:

• Survey distributed to APPE preceptors at the University of Mississippi and University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
• A 23-item Qualtrics survey assessed preceptor perceptions of failing students.
• Descriptive statistics were used to analyze collected survey data.

Main Results:

• 404 preceptors participated; 7.9% reported failing a student.
• 78.7% of preceptors had never failed a student.
• 13.4% felt they should have failed a student but did not.

Conclusions:

• Findings support anecdotal evidence that preceptors rarely fail students.
• A significant number of preceptors have hesitated to fail students despite justification.
• Future research should focus on empowering preceptors to fairly fail students when necessary.