(99) Metacognition Education and Exam Wrappers to Stimulate Pharmacy Student Self-Awareness Development

Objective : Metacognition supports deeper examination of one’s thought processes and exam wrappers provide a framework for students to practice this reflection. The purpose of this study is to explore pharmacy students’ self-awareness development, confidence, and exam performance following an intervention focused on teaching and developing metacognitive strategies.

Methods: Pharmacy students enrolled in a pharmacotherapy course complete an exam wrapper as a survey series before and after each exam. Parts 1 and 2 ask students to predict their exam score and provide baseline information such as time spent studying. Part 3 asks reflection questions about missed questions and confidence in each topic assessed on the exam. After the first exam of the Fall 2023 Quarter, a faculty member facilitated a guided exam wrapper intervention. All other exam wrappers were completed independently. Correlational analysis of predicted to actual exam scores at two time points was used, alongside an analysis of confidence rankings within topics to examine students' self-awareness and predictive confidence over time.

Results: Students' self-awareness predictions of exam scores before and after taking the exam showed minimal difference between the two predictions; however, both timepoints had positive correlation to the actual exam score with correlations ranging between rs(30)=.564-.826, p<.001. Similarly, students' confidence in their performance within the topics of the exam positively aligned with their actual performance within those topics, indicating students' awareness of knowledge to be aligned with performance.

Conclusions: Exam wrappers provide students with the necessary guidance to thoroughly reflect, and the intervention reinforced the metacognitive practice. Reflective practices like the exam wrapper series provide students the opportunity to self-evaluate, while course faculty are granted a view into students’ well-being, awareness of self, and anticipation of performance.