Faculty & Staff
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Proposal
PROPOSED ACTIONS FOR POOR PERFORMANCE ON ANNUAL OUTCOMES ASSESSMNENT EXAM
Assessment of Learning Committee
December, 2001
For implementation beginning with 2002 exam
Student failure of overall exam (based on cut score)
- Students failing the overall Assessment of Learning exam will be required to retake a similar exam constructed from the question bank
- The exam will be given on a Saturday at the earliest convenience of the Assessment of Learning Committee and the Office of Curriculum and Students
- If a student who fails the first overall exam does not sit for the retake exam, they will not be allowed to progress to the next level of the curriculum
- If a student fails the retake exam, they will be required to sit before the Credentialling Committee
- The Credentialling Committee, with assistance when needed from the Assessment of Learning Committee, will determine the progression of each individual student, taking into account past academic performance as well as performance on the two failed assessment exams
Further proposal to account for poor performance on individual abilities
Potential implementation with 2003 or 2004 exam
Each of the categories in which the faculty believes that students should demonstrate competence is very important. However, we feel it is safe to say that it is likely that some categories are more important than others. For example, we feel most would agree that the most important category in which students should demonstrate competence would be providing pharmaceutical care. This is not to say that categories such as communication, basic science, problem solving / critical thinking, dispensing, professionalism, or social and administrative science are not important. However, in our charge to produce practitioners that are sent into the public arena to care for patients, our first concern is that we be sure that our product will protect the public, and cause no harm. We feel that the way to best assure ourselves of that end is to place more emphasis on the assessment of the students' pharmaceutical care skills.
This can be accomplished by weighting the exam more heavily on pharmaceutical care than the other categories (for example, 2 to 1). As it stands now, a student could conceivably do very well on categories such as professionalism or social science, and do poorly on pharmaceutical care, yet still pass the overall exam.
How would this weighting be done? There is a valid method to do that. A formalized task analysis survey can yield quantified data which can be used in exam category weighting. This process will likely take a significant amount of time. A reasonable estimate is that we could be ready to implement this system by the time of the 2003 exam, or the 2004 exam at the latest. If any faculty member would like more information on the task analysis survey methods, it can be obtained by contacting Dr. Supernaw in the Office of Curriculum and Students.
After proper weight is given to the categories, we will be better able to evaluate students who pass the overall, but fail specific competencies. In this case, we would do the following:
Students who pass the overall exam, but fail specific competencies
- From the test bank, a larger set of questions from the specific category will be chosen for the student's particular class standing
- The student will be required to retake the larger subset of questions for each failed category at a date and time set by the Assessment of Learning Committee and the Office of Curriculum and Students
- If the student fails the specific category in the partial retake exam, specific remediation will be prescribed and competence will be subsequently assessed.
Currently, we have shown excellent reliability in the overall exam (PXT = 0.745). That is why the committee feels that implementing consequences for poor performance on the overall exam is very justified. However, reliability has not been proven for individual competencies, or categories, because of the smaller number of items. By providing the student with a larger sample of questions from a particular category they performed poorly in, we can determine with much greater confidence that there is or is not a deficiency that needs to be addressed.
This proposal will be discussed at the December full faculty meeting. However, the committee would appreciate any comments you may have in advance in order to facilitate the discussion process during the meeting. Thank you.