Research
Investigating Student Pharmacist Perceptions of Professional Engagement Using a Modified Delphi Process

https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe767125Get rights and content

ABSTRACT

Objective

To develop a definition of professional engagement, a list of professionally engaging and disengaging activities, and characteristics of those activities.

Methods

A 2-round modified Delphi process was conducted using student pharmacists. The first round captured input while the second assessed agreement using a 5-point Likert scale.

Results

A definition was created using the 3 items that reached consensus. All engaging characteristics reached consensus, and 25% (3/12) of the disengaging characteristics reached consensus. Lower rates of consensus were observed for activities, with 78% (7/9) of the professionally engaging and none of the disengaging activities reaching consensus.

Conclusion

The findings of this study have implications for creating professionally engaging learning experiences for student pharmacists and suggest that ensuring activities contain certain professionally engaging characteristics may be more important than the activities themselves.

Keywords

professional engagement
work engagement
academic engagement
student perceptions
Delphi technique

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At time of study Dr. Traynor’s affiliation was with the College of Pharmacy at the University of Minnesota – Duluth, Duluth, MN.

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