Comparison of faculty's perceived coverage of outcomes: Pre- versus post-implementation

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education,  Spring 1998  by Mort, Jane R,  Houglum, Joel E

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The College of Pharmacy at South Dakota State University used a survey to determine the anticipated coverage of outcome statements in their PharmD curriculum prior to implementation of the curriculum. To determine if using a pre-implementation survey was valid, the faculty was resurveyed to ascertain their perceived level of coverage of the same outcomes after two years of curriculum implementation. This paper summarizes the difference between projected extent of outcome coverage prior to implementation and perceived extent of outcome coverage following implementation. The College's 85 outcomes were grouped into 13 categories. Three categories had a shift in level coverage by more than 10 percent of the courses. Overall, the faculty tended to slightly overestimate coverage of outcomes prior to implementation. There were only a few individual outcomes for which the coverage was considered to be inadequate. Action steps to compensate for these outcomes are discussed. Since there were few modifications required following the second survey, for our purposes the pre-implementation survey was a reliable means of predicting coverage of outcome statements.

INTRODUCTION

Outcomes have become the focus and measure of success for curricular design and development. Many schools are faced with the task of designing an entry-level PharmD program to meet the challenges facing the profession and subsequently must confront the arduous task of developing and agreeing upon a set of outcome statements. The American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy's outcome statements have provided a strong foundation for outcome development1. After outcome statements are established, a major concern is whether each outcome is adequately addressed through educational experiences so that these curricular outcomes can be achieved by students.

South Dakota State University is a land-grant institution that has had a professional pharmacy program for more than 100 years. After extensive review and debate, an entrylevel PharmD program was proposed. As described elsewhere(1), the curricular development plan was designed, outcomes developed and courses generated. The Curriculum Committee, composed of faculty from each department as well as students, developed the outcome statements which were refined and approved by the faculty. AACP documents served as the foundation for these activities and thus the Curriculum Committee's intent regarding outcomes were largely in concert with outcomes described by the AACP Commission to Implement Change in Pharmaceutical Education(2-5). The curriculum that was developed entails two years of preprofessional requirements and four years of professional training. Implementation of the curriculum began in 1994.

As a means to quantitate the projected achievement of curricular outcomes prior to implementation of the curriculum, the instructors for each course were surveyed regarding their projected achievement of each outcome. The instructors rated the anticipated extent of coverage on a Likert scale (see Appendix, Outcome Survey Likert Scale). The results of this survey were used to evaluate whether the extent of coverage of each outcome was appropriate prior to implementation of the curriculum. A concern with this preimplementation assessment is that the anticipated extent of coverage compared to the perceived extent after teaching the courses might differ. For example, experiential activities may be sacrificed for lecture content when the instructor realizes that the class is falling behind the intended schedule. In an attempt to determine the usefulness of this method of pre-implementation assessment, a subsequent survey was used in the spring of 1996. after two years of curricular implementation, in order to address the following objectives: (i) determine the reliability of projecting the extent to which outcomes will be covered prior to curriculum implementation; and (ii) evaluate the extent and appropriateness to which each outcome is addressed. This paper summarizes the results of the two surveys relative to these objectives.

METHODS

The survey was undertaken in the spring of the second year following initiation of the curriculum. All of the instructors responsible for teaching each of the 17 courses in the first two years of the professional program completed the survey. These were the same instructors who had completed the pre-implementation survey. The survey contained a list of the 85 outcome statements the college had agreed upon and a five point Likert scale to indicate the extent of coverage (Appendix, Outcome Survey Likert Scale). The survey was distributed after the curriculum had been implemented for two years so that each course in the first two years of the curriculum had been taught at least once. The results of the survey after implementation ( 1996) were compared to those prior to implementation of the curriculum (1994) for the same 17 courses.

RESULTS

To simplify interpretation and to be consistent with the original work, the five point Likert scale was collapsed to three sets. The first set ("no experience") contains those courses which do not address the outcome at all. The second set ("cursory experience") contains courses which deal with the outcome "not extensively" or "somewhat extensively." The final set ("comprehensive experience") contains courses which address the outcome "extensively" or "very extensively." The Outcome Survey Likert Scale (Appendix) contains a description of these terms which was provided with the survey.