(255) Tracking Student Engagement in Co-Curriculum Skill Development Across a Four-Year Curriculum

Objective : ACPE requires schools to track student engagement in activities that develop co-curriculum skills to meet accreditation standards. The University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy developed a process to quantitatively track student engagement in activities that develop 7 independent co-curriculum skills across all four years of the pharmacy curriculum.

Methods: Students qualitatively document evidence to support achievement of the curricular outcomes of the pharmacy program through the electronic portfolio. Criteria was set for students to quantitatively track co-curriculum skill development that complements the qualitative evidence. Students document engagement in activities directly linked to developing one of 7 co-curriculum skills through a web-based program. Activities are cataloged based on events submitted by student organizations, self-reported by the individual student, or developed programmatically by the school.

Results: The Class of 2024 marks the second consecutive year that students tracked co-curriculum activities across all four years of the curriculum, including APPE rotations. Students are required to document a minimum of 10 activities per year in each of the first 3 didactic years of the curriculum and at least 2 activities for each APPE rotation. During the first 3 didactic years, students from the classes of 2023 and 2024 documented an average of 15 co-curriculum activities (range 4-34) per year. In P4 year, students documented an average of 25 activities (range11-42) that developed co-curriculum skills during APPE rotations. Students submit a final summative assessment at the end of P4 year to document total data across all four years.

Conclusions: Quantitative tracking of student engagement in activities that promote co-curriculum skill development is an effective way to demonstrate student growth and professional development across the entire four years of pharmacy curriculum.