(96) Making ‘Ceutics Stick: Effects of Instruction on Evidence-Based Learning Strategies on Pharmaceutics Exam Grades

Objective : To determine if incorporating instruction regarding evidence-based learning strategies (EBLS) in a personal development course impacts pharmaceutics exam grades. We hypothesize that incorporation of EBLS will improve pharmaceutics exam grades.

Methods: It is important to identify interventions to support student success. During the Fall 2023 semester, first-year pharmacy students participated in 8 weekly interactive sessions designed to learn and apply EBLS. These sessions were incorporated into Student Personal and Professional Development, a mandatory course in the PharmD curriculum. The content and exam structure for Pharmaceutics was consistent between the 2 cohorts. Exam and course grades in concurrently running Pharmaceutics from the group that received instruction on EBLS (intervention group) were compared to last year’s cohort who did not receive such instruction (control group). Mean exam scores and final course grades were compared using a student’s t-test.

Results: The intervention group (n = 119) had lower mean scores on Exam 1 (84.9% vs 81.6%, p = 0.012 and Exam 2 (82.7% vs 77.6%, p = 0.001) compared to the control group (n = 120). There were no statistically significant differences between mean Exam 3 (80.6% vs 78.7% p = 0.19), Final Exam (77.8% vs 77.5%, p = 0.83), and Final Course Grades (80.8% vs 80.8%, p = 0.99).

Conclusions: The intervention cohort had lower Exam 1 and Exam 2 grades, but this difference did not remain statistically significant for Exam 3 and Final Exam. Final course grades were similar. These results are consistent with the timeline of the EBLS curriculum for the intervention group. Further research is needed to determine if there were other differences between the cohorts and if other courses were impacted by this intervention.