Use of End-of-Class Quizzes to Promote Pharmacy Student Self-Reflection, Motivate Students to Improve Study Habits, and to Improve Performance on Summative Examinations.

Ruth Vinall,Eugene Kreys

doi:10.3390/pharmacy8030167

Abstract

Underperforming students are often unaware of deficiencies requiring improvement until after poor performance on summative exams. The goal of the current study was to determine whether inclusion of individual end-of-class formative quizzes, which comprise of higher level Bloom’s questions, could encourage students to reflect on and address deficiencies and improve academic performance. Ninety-seven out of 123 first-year pharmacy students (79%) enrolled in a Biochemistry and Cell & Molecular Biology course participated in a single-blinded, randomized, controlled, crossover study. Paired t-test analyses demonstrated that that implementation of individual end-of-class formative quizzes resulted in significantly higher summative exam scores for below average students (p = 0.029). Notably, inclusion of quizzes significantly improved performance on higher Bloom’s questions for these students (p = 0.006). Analysis of surveys completed by students prior to summative exam indicate that the formative end-of-class quizzes helped students identify deficiencies (89%) and making them feel compelled to study more (83%) and attend review sessions (61%). Many students indicated that quizzes increased stress levels (45%). Our collective data indicate that quizzes can improve summative exam performance for below average first year pharmacy students, and improve self-reflection and student motivation to study. However, the impact on student stress levels should be considered.

Highlights

Formative assessments support learning by helping students better understand course expectations, promoting engagement and discussion, and promoting self and peer reflection [1,2,3]
Our collective data indicate that quizzes can improve summative exam performance for below average first year pharmacy students, and improve self-reflection and student motivation to study
Formative assessments are a key part of team-based learning (TBL) pedagogy, an active learning-based pedagogy which is increasingly being used to teach medical profession degree courses, including in pharmacy schools [4,5,6,7,8,9]

Summary

Introduction

Formative assessments support learning by helping students better understand course expectations, promoting engagement and discussion, and promoting self and peer reflection [1,2,3]. They allow students and instructors to gauge competency prior to summative examinations and can thereby allow for corrective actions to be put in place if gaps in knowledge and understanding are identified. Formative assessments are a key part of team-based learning (TBL) pedagogy, an active learning-based pedagogy which is increasingly being used to teach medical profession degree courses, including in pharmacy schools [4,5,6,7,8,9]. In TBL, formative assessments first occur at the beginning of each module; individual and team readiness assurance tests (iRATs and tRATs) are employed to assess

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Discussion

Conclusion