Use of a script concordance test to evaluate the impact of a targeted educational strategy on clinical reasoning in advanced pharmacy practice experiential students

Abstract

Background and purpose: It is unclear how clinical reasoning is impacted by a single advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE) and how preceptors can further develop these skills. Educational activity and setting: Students completing an APPE within four sites were invited to participate. To assess clinical reasoning skills, students completed a 30 item script concordance test (SCT) during week 1 and week 5 of a rotation. Students were divided into control and intervention groups. The intervention group participated in a clinical reasoning discussion, during which students presented a case and led a discussion on how to reason through treatment options. Findings: Change in mean SCT scores between week 1 and week 5 were 0.84 (2.8%) and 1.23 (4.1%) in the control (n = 15) and intervention groups (n = 28), respectively. There was no significant change in scores in the control group (P = .07, CI -0.34, 2.01). The change in scores was statistically significant in the intervention group (P = .02, CI 0.23, 2.23). An independent samples t-test comparing the SCT score change for the control and intervention group showed no significant difference (P = .62, CI -1.18, 1.96). This study demonstrated the feasibility of implementing a SCT in experiential education. SCT scores did not significantly improve beyond the standard APPE in response to the focused educational intervention, but investigators found that the discussion facilitated rich conversations about patient cases and was valuable for assessing a student's thinking pattern.