Teamwork baseline assessment tool: Sparking teamwork dialogues in health professions training.

WHAT WAS THE EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGE?: A major challenge in health professions education is to equip graduates with essential teamwork skills, addressing cognitive, motivational, and emotional barriers that hinder effective collaboration among students from diverse backgrounds. WHAT WAS THE SOLUTION AND HOW WAS THIS IMPLEMENTED?: The Teamwork Baseline Assessment Tool (TBAT) was developed as an innovative solution to teach collaboration and teamwork, focusing on growth mindsets, reactions to challenging scenarios, and ideal team player attributes. Implemented during the orientation for new first-year students, TBAT facilitated early engagement in teamwork discussions, with students receiving personalised reports to aid in self-reflection and development. WHAT LESSONS WERE LEARNED?: Key lessons included the importance of initiating teamwork conversations early, the value of personalised feedback in promoting self-awareness and peer understanding, and the effectiveness of TBAT in providing instructors with insights into students' teamwork aptitudes. WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS?: Expanding TBAT across various student populations and integrating it into the curriculum aims to provide continuous opportunities for applying and reinforcing teamwork and collaboration skills. This strategy will support the development of targeted instructional approaches, fostering a collaborative learning environment and preparing students for the teamwork challenges in healthcare settings.

Identifying the core concepts of pharmacology education: A global initiative.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: In recent decades, a focus on the most critical and fundamental concepts has proven highly advantageous to students and educators in many science disciplines. Pharmacology, unlike microbiology, biochemistry, or physiology, lacks a consensus list of such core concepts. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH: We sought to develop a research-based, globally relevant list of core concepts that all students completing a foundational pharmacology course should master. This two-part project consisted of exploratory and refinement phases. The exploratory phase involved empirical data mining of the introductory sections of five key textbooks, in parallel with an online survey of over 200 pharmacology educators from 17 countries across six continents. The refinement phase involved three Delphi rounds involving 24 experts from 15 countries across six continents. KEY RESULTS: The exploratory phase resulted in a consolidated list of 74 candidate core concepts. In the refinement phase, the expert group produced a consensus list of 25 core concepts of pharmacology. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS: This list will allow pharmacology educators everywhere to focus their efforts on the conceptual knowledge perceived to matter most by experts within the discipline. Next steps for this project include defining and unpacking each core concept and developing resources to help pharmacology educators globally teach and assess these concepts within their educational contexts.

A comparison of the academic performance of graduate entry and undergraduate entry pharmacy students at the course exit level.

INTRODUCTION: Graduate entry (GE) pharmacy students are trained in a shorter timeframe than undergraduate entry (UE) students. This study compares the academic performance of GE and UE pharmacy students at the course exit point. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of final exam grades in written and objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) was performed between GE and UE students from three graduating cohorts. Final written examination contained clinical case study questions, whereas OSCE involved role play with simulated patients or doctors. Statistical analyses were performed by t-test and one-way analysis of variance at .05 significance level and Pearson's correlation coefficient. RESULTS: No significant difference in academic performance was seen between GE and UE groups at course exit (P > .05). There was a trend for GE students performing marginally better in OSCE than UE students. Females showed better performances in verbal communication than males. GE males showed significantly lower empathy scores than all other groups. No significant difference was seen in problem-solving scores amongst all groups. Both UE and GE groups scored significantly better in written examinations compared with OSCE. CONCLUSIONS: Graduate entry pharmacy students from accelerated learning pathway and UE students performed similarly at the course exit point, providing empirical support for non-traditional graduate entry pathway as a viable option.

A Video-Based Reflective Design to Prepare First Year Pharmacy Students for Their First Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE).

We explored the use of a video-based reflective design in preparing first-year pharmacy students for their Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) in Victoria, Australia. This involved pre-workshop activities (a recording of themselves simulating the pharmacist responding to a simple primary care problem, written reflection, review of the OSCE video examples and pre-workshop survey); workshop activities (peer feedback on videos) and post-workshop activities (summative MCQ quiz and post-workshop survey). These activities took place three weeks before their OSCE. A mixed-method study design was employed with quantitative and qualitative analyses of the surveys and a focus group. A total of 137 students (77.4%) completed the pre- and post-workshop surveys, and ten students participated in the focus group. More student participants (54%) reported feeling prepared for the OSCE post-workshop than pre-workshop (13%). The majority (92%) agreed that filming, watching and reflecting on their video allowed them to learn and improve on their skills for the OSCE. The regression analysis found that video recording submissions and written reflections correlated positively with student OSCE performances, and the video-based reflective design learning experience was perceived to be beneficial in multiple ways. Thematic analysis of the focus group data revealed that students acquired metacognitive skills through the self-assessment of their video recordings, developed an awareness of their learning and were able to identify learning strategies to prepare for their first OSCE. Fostering students' feedback literacy could be considered in future educational designs.

Pharmacy Students' Perceptions and Performance on the Use of an Online Virtual Experience Tool for Practicing Objective Structured Clinical Examinations.

Objective. To examine pharmacy students' performance on and perceptions regarding the use of an interactive online tool for practicing to take objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs).Methods. The Monash OSCE Virtual Experience (MOVE), an online module consisting of 20 pharmacy case scenarios with virtual patients, was piloted with final-year pharmacy students at Monash University campuses in Australia and Malaysia. A mixed methods approach that included reviewing user attempts and comparing grades, collecting student-administered questionnaires, and holding focus groups was used to examine students' perception and performance.Results. More than 99% of all students attempted at least one online case scenario in preparation for their final in-person OSCE, and 81% attempted all 20 scenarios two or more times. Ninety percent of students at the Malaysia campus and 70% of students at the Australia campus reported that MOVE was a helpful study tool for their OSCE preparation. However, a raw comparison of user attempts and OSCE grades did not find a direct correlation between online module attempts and assessment grades. Self-administered questionnaire and focus group results indicated that MOVE prepared students for targeted and time-restricted history-taking and problem-solving skills. Overall, students perceived MOVE to be a useful learning tool and a less overwhelming learning experience than were face-to-face sessions. Nevertheless, students still preferred face-to-face OSCE practice with simulated patients over online practice with virtual patients.Conclusion. The Monash OSCE Virtual Experience was perceived by our students as a flexible and useful online learning aid in preparing for their final-year OSCE However, there was no direct correlation between online practice attempts and students' exam grades.

Development of a self-report instrument for measuring in-class student engagement reveals that pretending to engage is a significant unrecognized problem.

Student engagement during classes includes behavioural, cognitive and emotional components, and is a pre-requisite for successful active learning environments. A novel approach to measuring student engagement was developed, involving triangulation of real-time student-self report, observation by trained observers and heart rate measurement. The self-report instrument was evaluated in four separate cohorts (n = 123) at Monash University and the University of North Carolina. The six item self-report demonstrated good reliability (Cronbach's alpha values ranged from 0.7-0.81). The self-report showed predictive validity in that small group activities were rated as significantly more engaging than didactic lecturing. Additionally, there was significant inter-instructor variability and within-class variability, indicating good discrimination between classroom activities. This self-report may prove useful to academic teaching staff in evaluating and refining their active learning activities. Independent observation was not found to correlate with student self-report, due in part to students who were pretending to engage being rated as engaged by an observer. Strikingly, students reported that they were pretending to engage for 23% of class time, even for highly regarded instructors. Individual participants were rated as engaged for 42 of the 46 intervals for which they reported that they had "pretended to engage", indicating that the two observers were unable to detect disengagement during periods in which students pretended to engage. Instructors should be aware that student cues such as eye contact and nodding may indicate pretending to engage. One particular self-report item; "I tried a new approach or way of thinking about the content", correlated positively with heart rates, and a controlled study reproduced this finding during two activities that required students to try a new approach to understanding a concept. Agreement with this item also correlated with superior performance on two in-class written assessment tasks (n = 101, p<0.01). Further use of this tool and related educational research may be useful to identify in-class activities that are engaging and likely to lead to improved student attainment of learning outcomes.