Abstract:

Objectives:
The American Association Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Competency-Based Education Task Force proposed a definition for pharmacy including “authentic teaching and learning strategies aligned to assessments.” To determine a student’s skills profile, an assessment was created aligning programmatic outcomes before and after a six-month co-operative (co-op) experience.

Methods:
As part of a curriculum revision, new programmatic outcomes were adopted including revised Center for the Advancement of Pharmacy Education (CAPE) and entrustable professional activities. The placement of six-month co-op shifted (in January of 2024) allowing the assessment of student skills before and after these experiences. Critical to aligning the assessment to practice, a preceptor advisory panel was consulted to provide input and applicability of the assessment to activities encountered on co-op.

Results:
Four cases, two community-based and two institutional-based, were created with open-ended questions and administered before students beginning their first co-op in December 2023. Skills-based questions focused on the student’s thought process in navigating common scenarios encountered on a co-op experience. For example, while assessing a prescription for order processing, students answered questions about collecting important information, communicating with prescribers, and utilizing drug information resources. Questions were created and mapped aligning programmatic outcomes, at the appropriate introductory level of “beginning/knows how,” and were reviewed by the preceptor advisory council for real-world applicability. Feedback and grading of these assessments is ongoing.

Conclusions:
A rubric for evaluation of pre- and post-co-op assessments is in development to compare student responses before and after the completion of their co-op. Post-co-op cases will be given to students upon return from their co-op in July 2024 with results compared and feedback given. Using assessments with preceptor input provides valuable information about each student’s skill profile before and after co-op experiences to influence changes in the didactic curriculum.

Keywords:

Experiential, education, identity, skills, skills profile.