Comparison of faculty and student self-assessment scores of aseptic technique skills and the impact of video review on self-awareness for second-year pharmacy students.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Educating students about aseptic technique presents many challenges. Students at Drake University have limited exposure to this skill outside of the classroom setting, and students have previously shown a lack of awareness related to their own aseptic technique skills. One approach to developing self-awareness in this area may be the incorporation of activities involving video viewing and self-reflection.

EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITY AND SETTING: Second-year pharmacy students in the Intermediate Pharmacy Skills and Applications 2 course completed four total aseptic technique activities, each of which was assessed by faculty using a standardized assessment tool. Each student was video-recorded during one of these aseptic technique activities. Students were asked to self-reflect on their performance immediately after the activity and again after viewing the video recording of their performance (using the same criteria included in a standardized faculty assessment tool). Student self-reflection scores before and after video viewing were then compared to faculty scores.

FINDINGS: One-hundred six students participated in the video recording and self-reflection activity. Compared to faculty assessment scores, there was no significant difference between the self-reflections before or after video viewing (p = 0.571).

DISCUSSION: Video self-reflection had no significant impact on the ability to accurately self-assess aseptic technique skills, but this study did reveal several other opportunities for future teaching and research.

SUMMARY: Future efforts to impact student self-awareness should include additional self-reflection instruction, repeated self-reflection activities conducted over the course of a semester, and improved video recording technology.