PCOA

[ZakMeister]

So our school just announced today that the PCOA has been mandated by the NABP and with rotations some 7/8 months away we are worried how that's gonna impact our going into the final year as we are a 3 year program. How do you guys feel about the change?

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[y0ssarian87]

So our school just announced today that the PCOA has been mandated by the NABP and with rotations some 7/8 months away we are worried how that's gonna impact our going into the final year as we are a 3 year program. How do you guys feel about the change?

It doesn't affect progression as far as I know. It's simply an assessment to let you (and your school) know where you stand. It's mandatory for us to take it, of course, but poor performance on it should not negatively affect you.

 

[297point1]

It doesn't affect progression as far as I know. It's simply an assessment to let you (and your school) know where you stand. It's mandatory for us to take it, of course, but poor performance on it should not negatively affect you.

Please tell me: are you going to take it seriously? Are your classmates?

 

[y0ssarian87]

Please tell me: are you going to take it seriously? Are your classmates?

Personally, yes. We receive a report that outlines our weak areas. To me, that's beneficial. I don't know if all my classmates will take it seriously though. In fact, I expect that they won't. I certainly don't plan to study for it, but I will try my hardest on it. I tend to enjoy standardized exams though, so I don't know if I'm the person to ask.

 

[297point1]

Personally, yes. We receive a report that outlines our weak areas. To me, that's beneficial.

Y0ssarian87 is going to try, and you will receive some benefit for your efforts through your personal score report. Good for you.

I don't know if all my classmates will take it seriously though. In fact, I expect that they won't. I certainly don't plan to study for it, but I will try my hardest on it.

Thank you- you've proven the point that I - and many other pharmacy programs throughout the country - have been trying to make since this was announced over a year ago. Our efforts have led nowhere.

Some of your classmates might not try - and they are wasting their time. If that was all, fine- no big issue. Sadly, that isn't the issue here. It's called the Pharmacy Curriculum Outcomes Assessment for a reason- it is supposed to help schools evaluate the pre-APPE competency of their students. What do you think happens when the scores come back and they are horrible? Schools might be compelled to change their curriculum! Heck, I'll let NABP say it themselves: "The PCOA also supplies schools and colleges of pharmacy with data on national results. As part of a school’s or college’s commitment to continuous quality improvement, the PCOA may be used to help evaluate if its curriculum is meeting the desired outcomes of its doctor of pharmacy program."(http://www.nabp.net/programs/assessment/pcoa/pcoa-for-schools)

ACPE is going to want to know how a school is going to respond to poor PCOA scores (just like a low on-time graduation rate or low NAPLEX pass rates). Tinkering with the curriculum - fixing something that might not be broken - may result. And rest assured: it will involve MORE work being heaped on students, not less.

My guess: what starts off as low stakes becomes high stakes (basically a progression exam to the final year) within a decade. Not soon enough to worry you, but it's coming. Students slacking off on the PCOA in 2016 leads to a high-stakes PCOA progression exam in 2021. Your future interns are going to hate you for it.

Try, dammit. Try!

 

[y0ssarian87]

Y0ssarian87 is going to try, and you will receive some benefit for your efforts through your personal score report. Good for you.



Thank you- you've proven the point that I - and many other pharmacy programs throughout the country - have been trying to make since this was announced over a year ago. Our efforts have led nowhere.

Some of your classmates might not try - and they are wasting their time. If that was all, fine- no big issue. Sadly, that isn't the issue here. It's called the Pharmacy Curriculum Outcomes Assessment for a reason- it is supposed to help schools evaluate the pre-APPE competency of their students. What do you think happens when the scores come back and they are horrible? Schools might be compelled to change their curriculum! Heck, I'll let NABP say it themselves: "The PCOA also supplies schools and colleges of pharmacy with data on national results. As part of a school’s or college’s commitment to continuous quality improvement, the PCOA may be used to help evaluate if its curriculum is meeting the desired outcomes of its doctor of pharmacy program."(http://www.nabp.net/programs/assessment/pcoa/pcoa-for-schools)

ACPE is going to want to know how a school is going to respond to poor PCOA scores (just like a low on-time graduation rate or low NAPLEX pass rates). Tinkering with the curriculum - fixing something that might not be broken - may result. And rest assured: it will involve MORE work being heaped on students, not less.

My guess: what starts off as low stakes becomes high stakes (basically a progression exam to the final year) within a decade. Not soon enough to worry you, but it's coming. Students slacking off on the PCOA in 2016 leads to a high-stakes PCOA progression exam in 2021. Your future interns are going to hate you for it.

Try, dammit. Try!

I completely agree. Many of my classmates are aware of the implications, and I expect that most of those individuals will take it seriously. Others don't take things seriously even if there is a grade attached to it. I expect those individuals to not take it seriously. Depending on how the PCOA is administered with respect to other school events (e.g., is it before a final, is it during a stressful time, etc.), I think we will see varying levels of engagement. The schools should think carefully about the best way to engage students.

But I'd agree with everything you said.

 

[y0ssarian87]

Huh, interesting timing. In our school's weekly memo, there was a blurb about how our class will have a mock PCOA in January followed by review sessions that are integrated to our curriculum all prior to the official exam in May.

 

[y0ssarian87]

[deleting double post]

 

[Digsbe]

I had to take the PCOA from P1 to P3 year. It wasn't that bad. I was never a stellar grade student (no Rho Chi or 4.0) but my lowest PCOA score was 87% percentile (highest 97th P3 year). I think a lot of people probably don't take is seriously so if you actually try and remember a few things it's not that bad.

 

[y0ssarian87]

I had to take the PCOA from P1 to P3 year. It wasn't that bad. I was never a stellar grade student (no Rho Chi or 4.0) but my lowest PCOA score was 87% percentile (highest 97th P3 year). I think a lot of people probably don't take is seriously so if you actually try and remember a few things it's not that bad.

Is the percentile based off of your school or is there some national reference group? Either way, excellent job!

 

[lp12]

I completely agree. Many of my classmates are aware of the implications, and I expect that most of those individuals will take it seriously. Others don't take things seriously even if there is a grade attached to it. I expect those individuals to not take it seriously. Depending on how the PCOA is administered with respect to other school events (e.g., is it before a final, is it during a stressful time, etc.), I think we will see varying levels of engagement. The schools should think carefully about the best way to engage students.

But I'd agree with everything you said.

My school put the PCOA on a Friday afternoon. The Friday before our first Monday morning Therapeutics exam in the highest failure percentage course. They also told us it was only 100 questions and should take less than an hour. So yeah... that went over real well.

On the flip side we were specifically told not to prepare (no problem following those orders ). Our instructions said do not study at all - simply show up with the knowledge we have gained from school so far so they could see what we were actually learning/retaining without directed studying/cramming.

The score report gives a detailed breakdown of how you scored on all the sections and subsections and compares your scores to a national reference for your year (P1/P2/P3).

 

[anonmember]

Is the percentile based off of your school or is there some national reference group? Either way, excellent job!

It's based on a national reference group.

 

[Digsbe]

Is the percentile based off of your school or is there some national reference group? Either way, excellent job!

Supposedly it's a national pool and you are put up against people from the same year in the professional program. So P1's are compared with P1's, etc.

 

[PharmD01]

Hello, I am a P3 student. My school has recently told our class that we will be taking the PCOA for the first time in January 2016 and if we do not pass (score higher than at least the national standard) than we will be held back from proceeding onward with the program and beginning our APPE rotations. My first thought was that this could possibly just be a way to motivate students to try their best on the exam, but now I am thinking they are actually serious about this. In addition they've also told us to study & cram everything we can individually, which seems to be different than what other students in other programs have been told. Does anyone have any insight on whether or not this may be true that they can prevent students from moving forward with the program?

 

[confettiflyer]

I think given the general personalities of pharmacy students, it would take more effort to do badly on this exam than not.

If it's a true assessment of walking/non-crammed knowledge, then you don't need to "prep" for it either.

So everyone calm your nuts.

 

[romaniangirl]

Hello, I am a P3 student. My school has recently told our class that we will be taking the PCOA for the first time in January 2016 and if we do not pass (score higher than at least the national standard) than we will be held back from proceeding onward with the program and beginning our APPE rotations. My first thought was that this could possibly just be a way to motivate students to try their best on the exam, but now I am thinking they are actually serious about this. In addition they've also told us to study & cram everything we can individually, which seems to be different than what other students in other programs have been told. Does anyone have any insight on whether or not this may be true that they can prevent students from moving forward with the program?

It is probably not a scaring tactic. My college has the same policy: you need to pass PCOA in order to start APPEs. We take it every year to get used to taking it and see where we rank with others in our year across the country. I know of pharmacists that have failed and had to retake in order to start APPE. That said, you should be able to score at least the national average if you have maintained decent grades so far, and did not just memorize and forget everything you have learned. I haven't heard of many people complaining about it. It's a similar mechanism to med students taking STEP 1 after their second year. They must pass it to move on, but not that many actually outright fail it. It's a minimal competency exam.

 

[zelman]

It is probably not a scaring tactic. My college has the same policy: you need to pass PCOA in order to start APPEs. We take it every year to get used to taking it and see where we rank with others in our year across the country. I know of pharmacists that have failed and had to retake in order to start APPE. That said, you should be able to score at least the national average if you have maintained decent grades so far, and did not just memorize and forget everything you have learned. I haven't heard of many people complaining about it. It's a similar mechanism to med students taking STEP 1 after their second year. They must pass it to move on, but not that many actually outright fail it. It's a minimal competency exam.

If the goal is the national average, half will fail.

 

[romaniangirl]

If the goal is the national average, half will fail.

I meant to write national standard...woops! Though I'm not sure if the scoring for PCOA is based on a previous cohort, similar to the PCAT, or if it is based on a real-time national statistics and I'm also not sure if PharmD01 school requires 50% percentile (which would be what you are saying Zelman) or if they have a "national standard" which may or may not be the 50% percentile or possibly lower to meet a certain minimum competency. Either way, my point was don't freak out too much. My school has the same requirement and it is not an issue. Maybe 1-2 will fail, but the vast majority have no issues meeting the requirement. Hopefully, your college is the same.

 

[PharmD01]

I meant to write national standard...woops! Though I'm not sure if the scoring for PCOA is based on a previous cohort, similar to the PCAT, or if it is based on a real-time national statistics and I'm also not sure if PharmD01 school requires 50% percentile (which would be what you are saying Zelman) or if they have a "national standard" which may or may not be the 50% percentile or possibly lower to meet a certain minimum competency. Either way, my point was don't freak out too much. My school has the same requirement and it is not an issue. Maybe 1-2 will fail, but the vast majority have no issues meeting the requirement. Hopefully, your college is the same.

Thank you for the information. We have been told that our school will base "passing" on the national scaled mean score minus one standard deviation. I admittedly have no idea whether that is a "low" or "high" standard in general...

 

[romaniangirl]

Thank you for the information. We have been told that our school will base "passing" on the national scaled mean score minus one standard deviation. I admittedly have no idea whether that is a "low" or "high" standard in general...

Well, if you take into account basic statistics, that would mean about 16th percentile, which doesn't sound like a high standard, but I guess that would also depend on the overall performance of the cohort they are looking at (whether that's this year's students or a previous group).

 

[ZakMeister]

Does anyone mind sharing their exam if available? Is it similar to the sample the NABP has posted? The sample has structure related questions and I thought we are done with them in P1 :/

 

[BidingMyTime]

What is the supposed purpose of this exam? Is there a problem with people not passing NAPLEX after pharmacy school?

 

[ZakMeister]

What is the supposed purpose of this exam? Is there a problem with people not passing NAPLEX after pharmacy school?

It is to gauge the school's performance to see how they are doing in teaching their didactic coursework. However, the exam gives individual scores where students can see their progress. I am not sure why ACPE decided to mandate it. People have been passing NAPLEX fair and square

 

[y0ssarian87]

Has anyone successfully taken the PCOA yet? I'm sitting at school right now. We were supposed to have started the exam at 9am, but NABP never sent out our testing codes. They're trying to figure out how to proceed, and they've kept us waiting for over an hour. This whole testing process has been a mess.

 

[Jibby321]

Has anyone successfully taken the PCOA yet? I'm sitting at school right now. We were supposed to have started the exam at 9am, but NABP never sent out our testing codes. They're trying to figure out how to proceed, and they've kept us waiting for over an hour. This whole testing process has been a mess.

Yea. We took it back in January. Only had like 1 month notification and faculty told us it requires no additional studying or anything. So everyone I talked to did nothing to prepare for it. However we still do not have scores.

 

[BidingMyTime]

ACPE is going to want to know how a school is going to respond to poor PCOA scores (just like a low on-time graduation rate or low NAPLEX pass rates). Tinkering with the curriculum - fixing something that might not be broken - may result. And rest assured: it will involve MORE work being heaped on students, not less.

So just like public schools, it will lead to "teaching to the test". With just as in/valid results.

 

[Azurcia]

My private university pharmacy program threatens to kick out the students that don't pass one or more parts of the CAPSTONE (Drug information question, top 200, patient interview/assessment with BP/RR & SOAP, and PCOA) even though this isn't an actual credit or course. Low score on PCOA, kicked out of program....Are they legally allowed to do that?!

 

[steveysmith54]

My private university pharmacy program threatens to kick out the students that don't pass one or more parts of the CAPSTONE (Drug information question, top 200, patient interview/assessment with BP/RR & SOAP, and PCOA) even though this isn't an actual credit or course. Low score on PCOA, kicked out of program....Are they legally allowed to do that?!

Depends, does your school have a graduation requirement of having achieved a certain score on the exam? If they do, perhaps they are in the right.

 

[CetiAlphaFive]

My private university pharmacy program ....Are they legally allowed to do that?!

LOL.

"Please protect me from my own inferiority Big Government!"