Investigating student pharmacist perceptions of professional engagement using a modified Delphi process

Abstract

Objective. To develop a definition of professional engagement, a list of professionally engaging and disengaging activities, and characteristics of those activities. Methods. A 2-round modified Delphi process was conducted using student pharmacists. The first round captured input while the second assessed agreement using a 5-point Likert scale. Results. A definition was created using the 3 items that reached consensus. All engaging characteristics reached consensus, and 25% (3/12) of the disengaging characteristics reached consensus. Lower rates of consensus were observed for activities, with 78% (7/9) of the professionally engaging and none of the disengaging activities reaching consensus. Conclusion. The findings of this study have implications for creating professionally engaging learning experiences for student pharmacists and suggest that ensuring activities contain certain professionally engaging characteristics may be more important than the activities themselves.