(158) Impact of Practice Quizzes on Student Perceptions and Assessment Outcomes of a Third-Year Pharmacotherapy Course

Objective : The objective of this work was to describe the implementation of quizzes in an infectious diseases (ID) pharmacotherapy course, and to gather information regarding student utilization of the available quizzes, performance of students who utilized quizzes on course examinations, and student opinions of the value of the quizzes.

Methods: Practice quizzes were created for a third-year pharmacotherapy course. Results of student performance were gathered from the course learning management system. A survey instrument was released to students at two time points during the semester to gather information about student perceptions of the value of the quizzes.

Results: Nearly all students (95%) completed at least one quiz. There was a statistically significant difference in the number of quiz attempts among students who met the 80% competency bar on the course tests when compared to those who did not meet competency for 15 out of the 20 quizzes but on the course examinations for only 5 out of 20 quizzes. The majority of students agreed or strongly agreed the quizzes impacted how they studied for the examination (86%), enhanced their examination performance (89%), and increased confidence in their ability to take the examination (90%). Students also seemed to support implementation of quizzes in other courses (97%), planned to utilize available practice quizzes in the future (96%), and would recommend taking the practice quizzes to other students (91%).

Conclusions: ID practice quizzes in a pharmacotherapy course were well received by students and may be a useful tool to aid in learning course material.