(176) Mixed Method to Develop Content Valid Teaching Materials and Rubric for Employee Management in Pharmacy

Objective : There is a growing need in pharmacy education to address employee management skills for pharmacists. Literature on pharmacy management is limited to developing business plans and provides little focus on employee management skills. The objective was to develop and perform content validation on teaching materials and rubric.

Methods: One-hour semi-structured interviews with nine pharmacy managers were conducted. Qualitative findings from interviews were used to develop educational materials and rubric on employee communication, which was implemented in Fall2022. Objective-Structure-Clinical-Exam (OSCE) was used to assess rubric performance which contained 13 items (7 verbal, 5 nonverbal, 1 trust). Fall2022 OSCE on employee management case was compared with the course grade (convergent validity). The results were also compared with Fall2021 and Fall2020 OSCE on the same topic (discriminant validity). Two-samples t-test was used. Psychometric properties were assessed in StataBE17.

Results: All managers agreed on the importance of having training on effective employee management in pharmacy school, and all identified that a lack of training in the pharmacy curriculum on these topics. Results of the thematic analysis were utilized to develop teaching materials, OSCE case, and rubric. The content-valid rubric performance showed Cronbach’s alpha of 0.604 and 2 factor loading, in line with the hypothesized domain of distinguishing verbal and nonverbal communication aspects. Convergent validity showed correlation between OSCE performance and final grade (r=0.264, p=0.004). Discriminant validity showed improved OSCE performance and final grade in Fall2022 cohort compared to Fall2021 and Fall2020.

Conclusions: Content-valid teaching and rubric were developed in consultation with pharmacy managers to introduce and evaluate student performance on an employee communication case. Pharmacy curricula could benefit from including course work and hands-on training in employee management.