Scaffolding patient counselling skills in Australian university pharmacy programs.

This paper presents the results of an appraisal of the extent of, and approaches to, scaffolding for development of counseling skills of pharmacy students across Australian universities. There were two stages in the work. The first involved mapping of university pharmacy program and examination of placement handbooks from all but two of the fourteen universities offering pharmacy programs in Australia. The second involved a series of consultations and interviews with key representatives of various pharmacy stakeholder groups and individuals at a national level and in each state and territory of Australia. University academics and preceptors described significant roles in supporting students to build these skills especially within the pre-placement and during placement phases. Across Australian pharmacy schools, scaffolding for development of counseling skills through a range of approaches is evident. There appears to be support for this approach from both students and preceptors. The results of this research will have relevance both for other health professional programs and other programs which include experiential workplace learning with respect to the preparation of students for workplace activities

Collaborative development of an online pharmacy experiential learning database

Academics preparing students for experiential placements within professional programs require considerable curriculum planning and pedagogical expertise. Communities of practice involving workshops and online processes provide opportunities for collaborative work in developing quality curriculum materials and also in supporting widespread dissemination. The aim of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council funded project was to collaboratively establish an online repository of tasks and other associated resources. These tasks were intended for potential inclusion in the suite of activities that could be required to be completed in a pharmacy experiential clinical placement. An educational template and website were initially created, with over 90 academics and other industry partners subsequently attending a series of workshops to share ideas and develop the online materials. Online surveys regarding the tasks, written feedback concerning workshop processes and interviews were conducted as part of the ongoing evaluation processes to ascertain the effectiveness of the tasks and processes and to inform future directions. Workshops and follow up processes resulted in publication of twenty eight tasks, positive responses to the materials and to the collaborative processes

Nurturing a cross-institutional curriculum planning community of practice

This paper focuses on academic skill-building through using cross-institutional collaborative approaches in developing quality learning and assessment tasks for experiential placements. A curriculum planning template was used for the collaborative work, with materials developed being disseminated on a specially designed online repository website. Results, analyzed within a community of practice framework, indicate the activities. There is potential evident for building a more mature community of practice given the value of the collaborative learning process involved. This would need additional opportunities and leadership over an extended timeline. Some longer term changes in curriculum planning and impacts on wider networks are also evident. This case study provides a model which is relevant across all disciplines and which highlights professional learning occurring through collaborative academic work focused on relevant practice

Academic integrity and plagiarism: a review of the influences and risk situations for health students

Health professions are increasingly focusing on the development of integrity and professionalism in students of Health disciplines. While it is expected that Health students will develop, and commit to, the highest standards of conduct as undergraduates, and henceforth through their careers, the pressures of assessment and external commitments may lead to both unintentional and intentional plagiaristic behaviours. Exponential growth in Internet resources and new information technologies, as well as individual belief systems or naivety about the authorship attribution convention, suggest complexity in understanding the risks and factors associated with academic plagiarism. This paper reviews the education literature to provide an insight for academics into reasons for student plagiarism and, where possible, management of these risks. Our review refers to the health professions as a discipline in which academic conduct in students should be at the highest possible standard

Pharmacy student professional identity formation: a scoping review

Transitioning from being pharmacy students to pharmacists is challenging. Students need to reconcile their professional aspirations and what they have learnt with the realities of practice. A smooth transition can be hampered when they are unable to enact the role they have envisaged or if their expectations are not met. These challenges relate to professional identity. A key challenge for pharmacy educators is how best to support the professional identity formation (PIF) of pharmacy students. To assist with this challenge, we conducted a scoping review to identify factors influencing pharmacy students' PIF and pedagogical strategies to support PIF.In September 2018, we undertook a scoping review of all contemporary research investigating pharmacy student PIF including all relevant qualitative, quantitative, theoretical, and gray literature. We searched eight databases for the review: MEDLINE, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Embase, Australian Education Index, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Literature published between January 2008 and September 2018 was reviewed and screened using inclusion/exclusion criteria. The selected articles were charted and thematically analyzed.We included 22 articles in the review. Studies generally concurred about the importance of attending to PIF throughout the whole pharmacy curriculum. Yet, those studies reporting on pharmacy students' professional identities found that students experienced challenges forming their identities. While several curriculum interventions supporting PIF have been implemented, these tended to be one-offs and there was an absence of interventions engaging key stakeholders including placement preceptors, other health professionals, and patients/consumers.Supporting the formation of pharmacy students' professional identity, while recognized as an important goal for pharmacy education, requires further empirical inquiry. Pedagogical practices focused on identity formation including adopting an integrative curricular approach are required