Abstract
Background: Successful pharmacy curricula expose students to a variety of teaching and assessment methods to prepare students for clinical practice. However, development of clinical decision-making skills is often challenging for learners. To meet this need, the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) Patient Case Format was developed to enhance traditional paper patient cases by integrating problem-based and case-based learning to improve pharmacy student learning. The objectives of this evaluation were to qualitatively evaluate the CYOA case format. The qualitative assessment of the student pharmacist’s learning experience utilizing this novel patient case format was used to formulate a template for extrapolation to other disease states. Methods: Focus groups were conducted with second year Pharm.D. students enrolled at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC) College of Pharmacy. The focus groups were conducted in Fall 2020, beginning the week after they were exposed to the CYOA case format. The corpus of data was analyzed thematically to identify themes using inductive coding. To establish the validity of this evaluation, the team met to assess the consistency of the data reduction methods and guard against methodological issues that could influence and affect coding decisions. Results: Participants were recruited until thematic saturation was achieved. Out of 25 participants, 23 participants provided demographic information, with 74% identifying as female. Thematic analysis identified three themes: (1) “It was just fun!” (2) Empowering Pharmacy Students through Groupwork: “Collaboration [is] going to be vital” and (3) Meeting the Need for Real-Life Scenarios: “This is a real person.” Conclusions: The data highlight that there are numerous advantages of adopting the CYOA format for delivering applied pharmacotherapy content. The CYOA format presents students with a realistic scenario that is fun and engaging and challenges students to justify their decisions regarding patient care in a structured group environment.
Highlights
Successful pharmacy curricula expose students to a variety of teaching and assessment methods to prepare students for clinical practice
Three themes emerged from analysis that relate to the concurrent case-based learning (CBL) and Problem-based learning (PBL)
The Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) activity is a novel approach to pharmacy instruction that pairs case-based learning with problem-based learning, asking students to work in groups to work through a realistic scenario
Summary
Successful pharmacy curricula expose students to a variety of teaching and assessment methods to prepare students for clinical practice. Development of clinical decision-making skills is often challenging for learners To meet this need, the Choose Your Own. Adventure (CYOA) Patient Case Format was developed to enhance traditional paper patient cases by integrating problem-based and case-based learning to improve pharmacy student learning. Adventure (CYOA) Patient Case Format was developed to enhance traditional paper patient cases by integrating problem-based and case-based learning to improve pharmacy student learning The objectives of this evaluation were to qualitatively evaluate the CYOA case format. Exposing students to a variety of teaching and assessment methods allows them to communicate effectively, solve difficult cases, and contribute to an interprofessional environment. A recent meta-analysis of studies comparing digital game-based learning found that digital games can significantly enhance
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