A comparison of grading rubrics for professional seminars given by doctor of pharmacy candidates

Abstract

ObjectiveTo compare a numeric grade-based rubric, previously developed by the Auburn University, Harrison School of Pharmacy for assessing fourth-year Doctor of Pharmacy student professional seminar presentations, to a newly developed pass/fail rubric. MethodsA research group was assembled for this study that consisted of five faculty members and the school's assessment director. The research group reviewed a random sampling of 25% (n = 32) of the 2011 graduating class's seminar presentations using the newly developed pass/fail rubric. Of those selected, the seminar presentation was viewed via digital or DVD recordings and graded by three members of the research group. These assessments were then compared to the actual grade received with the old, numeric-based rubric in 2010–2011. The Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-ranks test for paired comparisons was employed to compare the scores with the old and new grading rubrics. ResultsNone of the students in the sample failed the professional seminar with utilization of the old, numeric-based rubric. However, the failure rate increased significantly [65.6% (n = 21), p<0.001] with utilization of the new pass/fail rubric. Overall, the strongest performance categories with the new rubric were Delivery (34% received highest distinction and 6% failed) and Printed and Audiovisual Materials (28% received highest distinction and 9% failed). The weakest areas of performance with the new rubric were Summary (50% failure) and Seminar Content (44% failure). ConclusionsUtilization of the new pass/fail rubric provides a more rigorous system of grading student presentations than the old numeric-based rubric.