Pharmacy Students' Ability to Think About Thinking
Pharmacy Students' Ability to Think About Thinking
Metacognition is important to the development of life-long learning in pharmacy students. Students should be able to monitor what they know and what they don't know in order to improve performance. Using a summative examination, higher performing students evidenced better metacognitive skills by better identifying incorrect items. However, lower performing students were better able to predict their overall performance on the examination. Student responses to the metacognitive questionnaire helped refine the items and resulted in changes to the summative examination. Future studies should investigate methods to increase metacognition in pharmacy students in an effort to improve summative performance.
Conclusion
Metacognition is important to the development of life-long learning in pharmacy students. Students should be able to monitor what they know and what they don't know in order to improve performance. Using a summative examination, higher performing students evidenced better metacognitive skills by better identifying incorrect items. However, lower performing students were better able to predict their overall performance on the examination. Student responses to the metacognitive questionnaire helped refine the items and resulted in changes to the summative examination. Future studies should investigate methods to increase metacognition in pharmacy students in an effort to improve summative performance.
