Validation of an instrument to assess student pharmacist self-authorship.

Introduction: Self-authorship is the creation of one's own perspective by contextually evaluating evidence, constructing independent beliefs, and maintaining capacity to consider outside perspectives. Transitioning between cognitive self-authorship stages is common during higher education. Despite correlation to several co-curricular subdomains, instruments to measure self-authorship are limited, however, one such instrument has been developed within medical education and would benefit use within pharmacy education.

Methods: All student pharmacists at two public, 4-year pharmacy programs were invited to complete a voluntary, anonymous survey measuring self-authorship. The instrument was adapted from existing validated survey instruments. To ensure validity and reliability among, structural equation modeling and Chronbach's alpha was used to analyze three factors (Career Development, Data Interpretation & Decision Making, and Ethics & Values).

Results: A total of 157 surveys were completed. The mean age of respondents was 28 years and 79.17 % were female. Validation analysis found that results from the two institutions have an acceptable fit for the Career Development and Data Interpretation & Decision Making factors, with the Ethics and Values factor having a poor model fit (RMSEA = 0.08, 0.09, 0.29 respectively). Each factor yielded a good level of internal consistency for the current stage of research (α = 0.49, 0.52, 0.72 respectively).

Conclusions: This development of an instrument assessing self-authorship among student pharmacists has wide-reaching applicability to assess and inform students in their journey towards exploring personal and professional values. The adaptation of this instrument has resulted in one which is valid and reliable for the current stage of research within student pharmacists. Future steps including using this instrument to determine if particular educational interventions or progression across curricular elements impact self-authoring.