program at an accredited school of pharmacy in North Carolina, concept mapped a pseudorandomized set of disease states over the course of a semester. Second-year students in a core curriculum pharmacotherapy course, all enrolled in the Pharm.D. In this study, we aimed to investigate the validity of results produced by a software program against expert-rated grades and to assess the program’s ability to automate part of the feedback process and thus lessen the effort involved. However, the effort involved might preclude the use or affect the value of concept maps in certain educational settings. To provide feedback on concept map performance and enable students to reflect on their performance requires several steps: (1) developing an expert concept map (called a ‘key’), (2) having students perform the concept mapping activity, (3) comparing each student map against the key using common measures of network similarity (such as overlap in the number and labeling of concepts, overlap in the types of relationships that are shown, and the maps’ overall organization and complexity), and (4) reporting salient similarities and differences between the student map and key that might benefit students. Importantly, these efforts take time and resources. When paired with feedback, and compared to expert maps, concept maps offer the potential to allow students to self-assess or be assessed on their understanding of therapeutic topics. However, they can also serve as a type of formative assessment. In the authors’ school of pharmacy, concept maps are being used to help guide self-directed learning of foundational material on therapeutic topics-pre-class work-ups that students build on with cases and expert debriefs. By using concept maps as an assessment device, two strategies of enhancing metacognitive skills-reflections and adding judgment of understanding-can be applied to these maps to determine their effect on improving student self-assessment, an essential component of metacognitive knowledge. Furthermore, concept maps have also been used as an assessment device in pharmacy classrooms. Concept maps are currently used to facilitate the learning of disease state knowledge such as pain and cardiovascular diseases, as well as an understanding of the Pharmacists Patient Care Process. The use of concept mapping in the pharmacy curriculum is becoming more prevalent in recent years as shifts to accreditation standards encourage more engaged and active learning. Although concept mapping has been shown to be effective in fostering and evaluating critical thinking skills in some fields, such as nursing and physician education, the broad utility of concept maps for the development of metacognition remains under-studied. The technique has also been useful for assessing the effectiveness of education sessions used to develop critical thinking skills in new pediatric medical residents and the value of structured feedback on physiotherapy students’ conceptual knowledge. Administration of a concept map activity where nurses were asked to map out a patient’s primary health need, key assessment findings, diagnosis, and interventions helped to increase critical thinking skills using a nursing validated assessment. The organization and complexity of concept maps can help identify different types of knowledge that the students possess, and help to inform tutoring. They are used as an educational technique to help improve students’ understanding of course material, integrate didactic and experiential knowledge, and encourage higher-order learning. Various strategies can be employed to enhance student metacognition in the classroom including exam reviews, reflections, and adding judgment of understanding the focus of this study was another strategy: the use of concept maps.Ĭoncept maps are graphical representations of how various concepts are related to one another. This finding highlights the need to identify and implement strategies to enhance student metacognitive skills within their curriculum. Additionally, when asking students about their confidence and willingness to ask for help on specific topics, students may show overconfidence in topics they are less familiar with, and be less willing to ask for help with these same topics. High performing students have demonstrated more accurate self-assessment of their ability as compared to low performing students, and are better able to identify incorrect items on an exam. As such, metacognitive ability is important for both student pharmacists’ success in the classroom, as well as their continued success as independent clinicians. Metacognition, or “thinking about your thinking”, is an essential component of developing study skills, self-directed learning, and critical thinking.
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