(370) Impact of Blended Learning on Clinical Inquiries for P3 Students

Trainee Category: Student Pharmacist

Objective : In 2020, our institution transitioned the P3 introduction to clinical inquiries (i.e., drug information papers) to a blended format including synchronous discussions with active learning. The objective of this evaluation is to determine change in students’ performance in clinical inquiries (CIs) after conversion to a blended format.

Methods: A report of all CI scores was generated from the online grading database for class of 2020 (non-blended) and classes of 2021 and 2022 (blended). The CI is made up of 12 subcomponents which are each scored out of 5 points but with different final score weighting. The inclusion of appropriate literature, evidence summary, and evidence-based answer are each 25% of the final score; the remaining 9 items focus on technical writing, comprising the last 25%. CI scores from the non-blended group were compared to the blended group using the Wilcoxon-rank sum test.

Results: There were 139 students in the non-blended group and 259 students in the blended group. The overall score improved using the blended format (84.4 pre-blended and 88.6 blended; p< 0.001). The mean sub-scores for including appropriate literature (4.05 non-blended to 4.44 blended; p< 0.001) and evidence summary (3.92 non-blended and 4.10 blended; p=0.011) significantly improved. The evidence-based answer mean sub-score improved, but not significantly (4.63 to 4.75; p=0.32). The remaining 9 criteria had slight improvements; The lack in significance on some items was due to students performing high on these sections prior to blending or the item was not part of the active learning.

Conclusions: The transition to blended learning benefitted students by providing additional practice opportunities which correlated to better student performance compared to a traditional, lecture-only approach.