Pharmacy student perspectives regarding curricular renewal with experiential alignment

Background and purpose: To evaluate pharmacy students' ability to perform and perspectives regarding a purposeful mapping of curricular content into experiential settings for application.

Educational activity and setting: Students were given a list of activities developed by their curricular course directors that were to be completed during their introductory pharmacy practice experiences (IPPEs). Students were tasked with completing each assignment at their community or health system pharmacy site, and verify completion with their preceptor. Students were surveyed regarding their completion of these activities, who the tasks were performed on, and the value students perceived from the exercises.

Findings: Students ranked that the curricular mapping to experiential courses were successful. Average student responses reflected that the activities had value and positively impacted their learning. Many students struggled to find specific patient examples to complete the activities the way the course designed them. Changes to the structure of these activities was necessary for student success.

Discussion and summary: Students felt that the curricular mapping of assignments into IPPEs was meaningful and improved their learning. Not all students were able to complete assignments as described.