A comparison of pharmacy students' confidence and test performance

Abstract

Objectives: The objectives of this study were to estimate student retention of knowledge regarding the management of patients with hypertension and dyslipidemia, measure student clinical confidence, and identify the relationship between clinical confidence and actual performance on a knowledge assessment test.

Methods: This was a sequential cross-sectional study to evaluate knowledge retention and clinical confidence of second-year pharmacy students. To measure student clinical confidence, a 12-item clinical confidence questionnaire was administered. To measure student retention of knowledge, a 21-question knowledge assessment test was administered. At least 1 test question was related to each question asked in the clinical confidence questionnaire.

Results: One hundred eight students completed the study. The percentage of students correctly answering test questions decreased from a baseline of 70.4% +/- 5.8% to 60.9% +/- 5.8% four months later (p = 0.02) in spite of the students rating their clinical confidence from moderate to high in all areas. The proportion of students answering questions correctly was similar across the different levels of confidence.

Conclusion: Overall, retention of knowledge appears to decline over a 4-month period of time. Furthermore, while students perceived moderate to high confidence, student knowledge did not match perceived confidence.

Figure 1

Prospective perception of clinical confidence of students about different aspects of National Cholesterol Educational Program (dyslipidemia) and Joint National Commission (hypertension) guidelines. Using a Likert scale, students were asked to estimate their level of confidence (1 = low confidence to 5 = high confidence) in answering questions relating to different aspects of dyslipidemia (shaded text) and hypertension using National Cholesterol Educational Program (NCEP ATP III) and Joint National Commission (JNC 7) guidelines, respectively. The proportion (percentage) of respondents (n = 108) selecting each level of confidence is shown as closed bar (1, low confidence), light grey bar (2, low-moderate confidence), dark grey bar (3, moderate confidence), cross-hatched bar (4, moderate-high confidence), and open bar (5, high confidence).