Faculty and Staff
Faculty and Staff Handbook » School of Pharmacy
School Of Pharmacy Assessment Program
The assessment program at the School of Pharmacy aims first to assure that each of our graduates is fully competent in all the knowledge, skill, and attitudinal outcomes in the curriculum. Second, it provides a process whereby the quality of our curriculum and teaching can be improved continually.
The program is unique in the following ways:
- Doctoral candidate competency will be assessed in ten key areas - communication, application of science, problem-solving, dispensing, provision of pharmaceutical care to individual patients, provision of pharmaceutical care to populations, decision-making (moral, ethical and legal), management, advancement of the profession, and personal development - in multiple courses in each year throughout the curriculum.
- These areas have been identified as essential components of modern practice. The number has been limited to make assessment practicable.
- Our primary emphasis is on formative assessment, that is, assessment that provides feedback to both doctoral candidates and instructors that is used to improve and correct behavior rather than punish it.
- Such assessment has been shown to decrease unethical behavior, shift the focus of doctoral candidate attention from grades to learning and increase cooperation and trust between doctoral candidates and faculty.
- Competency will be assessed during annual progress examinations that will be taken by the entire doctoral candidate body.
- To ensure adequate progress, each competency area will be assessed in levels: for example, a beginning doctoral candidate would be expected to be able to demonstrate skills that have been taught and show understanding of curricular content when provided with appropriate cues and prompts. Graduating students would demonstrate the same skills and knowledge, but without prompts, and in multiple practice-related contexts.
- The behaviors of doctoral candidates will not be compared with one another (called "grading on the curve" or norm-referencing). Instead, doctoral candidates will be graded according to standards of quality learning and practice (called criterion-referencing).
- Many schools are adopting competency-based assessment. In this approach, doctoral candidates are graded as a function of whether they do or do not exhibit certain behaviors. This approach has been shown to result in "the minimum effort to get by". Instead, by using the leveling approach, doctoral candidates are given ever-increasing levels of excellence towards which to strive. This approach has been shown to foster a "continuous improvement" mentality.
- The effectiveness of the entire program - teaching, curriculum, facilities, administration and assessment - will be assessed often and in many ways. Examples of assessment tools include doctoral candidate, faculty, and community questionnaires, peer observation, instructor and learner journaling, the use of portfolios, Assessment of Learning, and long-term studies of changes in practice. The results will be used to suggest changes that will continuously improve our quality.
Peer evaluations
Teaching portfolio for promotion and tenure decisions
Grading procedures (University and School)
Return to Handbook: School of Pharmacy