Impact of Student- Versus Instructor-Directed Case Discussions on Student Performance in a Pharmacotherapy Capstone Course

Objective. To evaluate the impact of incorporating student-directed (SD) vs instructor-directed (ID) active learning on student performance in a pharmacotherapy capstone course. Design. This 9-credit course was redesigned from exclusively ID case discussions to a format in which half were SD and half were ID. Student performance on evaluation questions derived from SD sessions was compared with that from ID sessions. Assessment. Overall, students (n=299) performed better on ID-session questions than on SD-session questions (78.7% vs 75.3%, correctly answered, respectively; p<0.001). For written evaluations, students performed better on ID-session questions than on SD-session questions (79.8% vs 73.9%, respectively; p<0.001). For verbal evaluations, students performed better on SD-session questions than on ID-session questions (79.5% vs 74.5%, respectively; p<0.001). After the course revision, student confidence regarding their ability to think critically, solve problems, make decisions, and pursue lifelong learning was high, and student and faculty feedback was positive. Conclusion. Student performance in a pharmacotherapy capstone course remained acceptable when a combination of SD and ID active learning was used, but the addition of SD learning did not translate to better performance on course evaluations.