Pharmacy Curriculum Outcomes Assessment for Individual Student Assessment and Curricular Evaluation

Abstract

The Pharmacy Curriculum Outcomes Assessment (PCOA) is a standardized examination for assessing academic progress of pharmacy students. Although no other national benchmarking tool is available on a national level, the PCOA has not been adopted by all colleges and schools of pharmacy. Palm Beach Atlantic University (PBAU) compared 2008-2010 PCOA results of its P1, P2, and P3 students to their current grade point average (GPA) and to results of a national cohort. The reliability coefficient of PCOA was 0.91, 0.90, and 0.93 for the 3 years, respectively. PBAU results showed a positive correlation between GPA and PCOA scale score. A comparison of subtopic results helped to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses of the curriculum. PCOA provides useful comparative data that can facilitate individual student assessment as well as programmatic evaluation. There are no other standardized assessment tools available. Despite limitations, PCOA warrants consideration by colleges and schools of pharmacy. Expanded participation could enhance its utility as a meaningful benchmark.

National Trends in the Adoption of Pharmacy Curriculum Outcomes Assessment for Student Assessment and Remediation

“…[7][8] Consistent with prior research, our results suggest the most common purposes for administering the exam are to assess the curriculum, individual student performance, and overall cohort performance. 5 The vast majority of responding programs (92%) in our study administered the PCOA to their P3 students in 2015-16.…”

“…Instead, it appears most institutions are currently utilizing the PCOA to inform students of their knowledge-based abilities and for curriculum assessment purposes. 5,8,14,15,18 However, 55% of programs in our study also reported that they are currently considering making changes to their stakes for P3 students associated with PCOA scores. This suggests that a high degree of change in the nature of PCOA use may occur over the next few years.…”

“…4 Most institutions have used PCOA as a low stakes and generally formative student assessment and whether or not they required it for P3 students (prior to the 2016 ACPE mandate) varied to a high degree across programs. 3,8,15,[17][18][19][20] Other pharmacy programs have reported use of institution specific competency assessments for both formative and curricular assessment purposes as well as in a high stakes manner to determine student progression.…”

Comparison of Pharmacy Students’ Perceived and Actual Knowledge Using the Pharmacy Curricular Outcomes Assessment

“…Limitations to using the PCOA as an external measure have been reported and include cost, lack of participation among schools, variability in student motivation, and differences in curriculum structure. 19 However, compared with program-specific progress examinations, the PCOA has the potential to provide benchmarking comparisons between programs and may be more cost effective in the long run if more schools participate.…”

Reliability of a Minimal Competency Score for an Annual Skills Mastery Assessment

“…2 Several different methodologies for conducting a psychometrically sound, comprehensive progress assessment have been developed. [3][4][5][6] While some may consider it a problem that there is no universally accepted method for performing a progress examination, others would argue that the assessments should be tailored to the curriculum, culture, and resources available to the individual school, and this may necessitate the use of a variety of techniques.…”