Objective. To determine if midterm and final examination scores in a pharmaceutical calculations course differ among students who take weekly quizzes collaboratively, noncollaboratively, or halfcollaboratively/half-noncollaboratively ("mixed"). Methods. One hundred twenty-three students enrolled in one of 4 laboratory sections: collaborative, noncollaborative, or mixed sections. Students working noncollaboratively completed a 15-minute quiz at the end of weekly laboratories. Students working collaboratively were randomly allocated into groups of 4 and worked independently for 5 minutes before working collaboratively for 10 minutes. Students in mixed sections worked collaboratively during one half of the semester and noncollaboratively during the other half of the semester in a crossover design to control for order effect. All students took midterm and final examinations independently. Results. Mean scores for a pretest did not significantly differ between the 4 laboratory sections at the study's onset. Multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed a significant multivariate effect for the 9 laboratory quizzes in relation to group assignment. Mean scores on the midterm examination did not significantly differ between collaborative and noncollaborative groups. On the final examination, the two mixed groups significantly outperformed the collaborative group, but did not significantly differ from one another or from the noncollaborative group. Conclusion. Peer collaboration improves quiz scores, is favorably perceived by students and enhances their course satisfaction, but does not improve subsequent performance on midterm and final examinations taken noncollaboratively.

Objective. The primary purposes of this study were to: 1) determine the extent to which multitasking affects the speed and accuracy with which professional-phase pharmacy students identify prescription errors and 2) determine if there is a relationship between students' self-perception of their multitasking ability and their actual ability. Methods. 121 second-year pharmacy students enrolled in Introduction to Dosage Forms spent one week in the experimental (multitasking) condition and one week in the control (undistracted) condition. Subjects were given 10 minutes to check 10 prescriptions and record any identified filling errors. A cellular phone was placed in each room. Subjects in the experimental (multitasking) condition answered a call from a researcher posing as a chatty customer during the prescription-checking task; those in the control condition were not interrupted by a cell phone call during the task. Subjects' completion times and accuracy were recorded. Results. When subjects where multitasking, they took significantly longer to complete the prescription-checking task than when they were not multitasking. Furthermore, when subjects were multitasking, they scored significantly lower on the prescription-checking task than when they were not multitasking. Finally, students' self-perceptions of their multitasking abilities were not related to the speed with which they completed the prescription-checking task nor to their accuracy. Conclusion.Multitasking negatively affects speed and accuracy of prescription verification in student pharmacists. Our procedure can be used as an in-class activity to demonstrate attentional limitations and to shape how future pharmacists practice.