Pharmacy Leaders' Advice to Students Pursuing Leadership: A Qualitative Study.

Introduction: Leadership development is important both from a curricular standpoint and for continued advancement of the profession. Advice from current leaders in the profession may serve as a powerful motivator to students desiring to be leaders. The purpose of this qualitative study was to provide advice from experienced pharmacy leaders.

Pharmacy Leaders' Reflections on Leadership and Legacy.

Objective: To explore the experiences, contributions, and perceived legacy of individuals recognized as leaders in the pharmacy profession and compare these by gender and generational category.

Methods: A total of 54 leaders were interviewed about their journey to leadership and the legacy they leave to the profession. Interviews were transcribed, de-identified, and qualitatively analyzed using an inductive, modified constant comparison approach for open and axial coding.

"Put me in Coach!" Engaging Faculty to Form a Winning Assessment Team.

This commentary uses the metaphor of an athletic team model to provide guidance when managing a successful assessment committee and assessment processes. To become a winning team, a joint effort must be exerted by players, coaches, and the athletic director. The topics of developing a team of productive members, creating, and implementing an assessment plan, forming a positive culture, and establishing leadership are discussed.

Perceptions and Practices for Evaluating Faculty Workload by Pharmacy Education Administration/Leadership.

Objective: To assess how department chairs/administrators define, measure, and evaluate faculty workload to better understand practices within the Academy.

Methods: An 18-item survey was distributed to department chairs/administrators via American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy Connect. Participants identified if they are a primary decision maker for faculty workload, whether their program has a workload policy, how workload is calculated, and how faculty satisfaction with workload equity is measured.

A pilot study on the use of the nominal group technique to refine core pharmacy roles and to determine what competencies may be missing from pharmacy education.

Introduction: To describe the use of the nominal group technique (NGT) to refine pharmacy core roles and to compare these roles with current pharmacy outcomes and other literature to highlight potential deficiencies.

Methods: The NGT process was used for this proposal review. The process was conducted in four key stages: silent generation, round-robin, clarification, and voting.

Lessons From Using Design Thinking to Develop the 2021 AACP Teachers' Seminar.

To describe and evaluate how a design thinking approach aided the creation of the 2021 American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP) Teachers' Seminar. The design thinking framework (ie, inspiration, ideation, and implementation) was used to structure the seminar development process from July 2020 to July 2021. Nine committee members engaged in a persona activity (ie, inspiration), a brainstorming activity (ie, ideation), and a prototyping activity (ie, implementation) to create a user-centered learning experience.

Evaluating Pharmacy Faculty's Awareness of Teaching and Learning Myths and Misconceptions.

To assess pharmacy faculty's knowledge of prominent and prevalent teaching and learning myths and misconceptions and evidence-based strategies prior to training. Participants completed a baseline assessment containing 16 true-false knowledge questions about teaching and learning misconceptions (10) and myths (six), one open-ended application question, and four participant demographic questions including years of experience in pharmacy academia, the focus of their institution (teaching or research), the number of education meetings attended, and whether they had formal training in education. After completing the baseline assessment of the top 16 misconceptions and myths, faculty were trained on the top 10 evidence-based teaching and learning strategies.

Strategies for Measuring Advances in Pharmacy Student Learning.

To provide guidance to authors and reviewers on how to design and evaluate educational research studies to better capture evidence of pharmacy student learning. A wide variety of assessment tools are available to measure student learning associated with educational innovations. Each assessment tool is associated with different advantages and disadvantages that must be weighed to determine the appropriateness of the tool for each situation.

Developing Critical Thinking Skills in Pharmacy Students.

To review the importance of and barriers to critical thinking and provide evidence-based recommendations to encourage development of these skills in pharmacy students. Critical thinking (CT) is one of the most desired skills of a pharmacy graduate but there are many challenges to students thinking critically including their own perceptions, poor metacognitive skills, a fixed mindset, a non-automated skillset, heuristics, biases and the fact that thinking is effortful. Though difficult, developing CT skills is not impossible.

Pharmacists opinions of the value of specific applicant attributes in hiring decisions for entry-level pharmacists.

Objective: The Hiring Intent Reasoning Examination (HIRE) was designed to (1) explore the relative value of applicant-specific attributes evaluated during the hiring of entry-level pharmacists; (2) examine how each of these attributes influences hiring decisions; and (3) identify which attributes practicing pharmacists perceive as most and least valuable.

Methods: An electronic questionnaire was developed and sent to 36,817 pharmacists; 3723 (11%) responded representing a broad cross-section of practice settings and job roles. Forty-eight attributes were analyzed, 24 character traits and 24 markers of academic success.

Pharmacists' Opinions of the Value of CAPE Outcomes in Hiring Decisions.

The Hiring Intent Reasoning Examination (HIRE) was designed to explore the utility of the CAPE 2013 outcomes attributes from the perspective of practicing pharmacists, examine how each attribute influences hiring decisions, and identify which of the attributes are perceived as most and least valuable by practicing pharmacists. An electronic questionnaire was developed and distributed to licensed pharmacists in four states to collect their opinions about 15 CAPE subdomains plus five additional business related attributes. The attributes that respondents identified were: necessary to be a good pharmacist, would impact hiring decisions, most important to them, and in short supply in the applicant pool.

An evaluation of an interprofessional practice-based learning environment using student reflections.

The 12th Street Health and Wellness Center is an interprofessional, student-led, community-based clinic. Students from all University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences colleges work together to provide healthcare services for residents of an underserved community. Interprofessional student teams assess patients and present to an interprofessional preceptor team.

Strategies for Improving Learner Metacognition in Health Professional Education.

Metacognition is an essential skill in critical thinking and self-regulated, lifelong learning. It is important for learners to have skills in metacognition because they are used to monitor and regulate reasoning, comprehension, and problem-solving, which are fundamental components/outcomes of pharmacy curricula. Instructors can help learners develop metacognitive skills within the classroom and experiential setting by carefully designing learning activities within courses and the curriculum.

Development of a Summative Examination with Subject Matter Expert Validation.

Objective. To describe the development, implementation and impact of a summative examination on student learning and programmatic curricular outcomes. Methods.

Qualitative Analysis of Written Reflections during a Teaching Certificate Program.

Objective: To evaluate the success of a teaching certificate program by qualitatively evaluating the content and extent of participants' reflections.

Methods: Two investigators independently identified themes within midpoint and final reflection essays across six program years. Each essay was evaluated to determine the extent of reflection in prompted teaching-related topic areas (strengths, weaknesses, assessment, feedback).

Family Commitment and Work Characteristics among Pharmacists.

Factors associated with family commitment among pharmacists in the south central U.S. are explored.

Pharmacy students' ability to think about thinking.

Objective: To investigate students' metacognitive skills to distinguish what they know from what they do not know, to assess students' prediction of performance on a summative examination, and to compare student-identified incorrect questions with actual examination performance in order to improve exam quality.

Methods: Students completed a test-taking questionnaire identifying items perceived to be incorrect and rating their test-taking ability.

Results: Higher performing students evidenced better metacognitive skills by more accurately identifying incorrect items on the exam.