The award recognizes the efforts of Waterloo Pharmacy’s previous and current assessment committee. Above: Rosemary Killeen, Tom McFarlane, Andrea Edginton, Kelly Grindrod, Alana Rigby. Absent: Tzong Cha, Renate Donnovan, Areen Duqoum, Nina Falak, Anthony Miller, Nardine Nakhla, Melinda Recchia, Cynthia Richard, Eric Schneider, Dip Shah
Professor Andrea Edginton and the Waterloo Pharmacy assessment committee were honoured this week at the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada (AFPC) conference in Quebec City. The team received the AFPC/Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada (PEBC) Award for Excellence in Research or Innovation in Assessment of Competence for developing and launching the midpoint assessment.
The midpoint assessment is a milestone in the undergraduate pharmacy curriculum and is taken by students at the end of their second year in the program. Introduced in 2015, the assessment is a minimal competency exam intended to identify students who have gaps in foundational knowledge from the pharmacy curriculum. It consists of a multiple choice examination and a real-time objective structured clinical examination where students simulate counselling experiences with standardized patients. Unlike course-based assessments, content for the midpoint assessment draws from all courses taught in the first two years of the program.
The AFPC/PEBC award recognizes the significant effort involved in designing and implementing an assessment like the midpoint. The assessment committee led the design of original questions and case content. Edginton, the committee chair, acknowledges the collective effort required to build the assessment.
The development of the midpoint was resource intensive and required buy-in from almost every faculty and staff member at the School,” says Edginton. “Although challenging to develop, our team demonstrated engagement, efficiency, and the can-do attitude that we pride ourselves on.
The midpoint is delivered in the second year of pharmacy education so that students at risk of falling behind their peers can identify areas of weakness and build strategies for improvement. Waterloo Pharmacy’s Programmatic Assessment Manager Renate Donnovan has been instrumental in setting up student success and remediation programming to provide support to students identified as at risk.
This kind of check-in style assessment with follow-up remediation is unique in the Canadian pharmacy education landscape, making it a strong example of innovation in competency assessment that the AFPC/PEBC award acknowledges. As future iterations are run, the assessment committee will further refine the assessment and share their processes with other pharmacy institutions.
Congratulations to Professor Edginton and the Waterloo Pharmacy assessment committee!