Class of 2009 Abstract / OBJECTIVES: To determine if there is a correlation between student involvement in pharmacy organizations and self-reported professional development. METHODS: A cross sectional, prospective, print-based questionnaire was submitted to students in their last didactic year of the Doctor of Pharmacy program at one university. The questionnaire was administered during a well attended, regularly scheduled class and students self-assessed their professionalism on the Behavioral Professionalism Assessment and provided data on their degree of involvement in pharmacy professional organizations. RESULTS: The questionnaire was completed by 78 of 84 students (a 93% response rate). Nearly 94% of participants reported that involvement in pharmacy organizations played some role in their professional development and approximately 30% of these students based this opinion on participation, leadership, and networking opportunities offered by professional organizations. A significant positive correlation between self-reported professionalism and involvement (i.e., the number of: brown bags/health fairs and organizational meetings attended, p<0.05 for each) was identified. CONCLUSIONS: A relationship was identified between professionalism and involvement at one college of pharmacy. Further research should be conducted at other colleges of pharmacy to determine if these data can be generalized to the larger pharmacy student population.

COMMUNITY ON CAMPUS: THE ROLE OF PHYSICAL SPACE by Kim D. Harrington The physical environment of a college campus provides the context for learning and social interactions. These interactions lead to involved students, which help build community, and vibrant communities on college campuses contribute to student persistence and academic success (Kuh, Cruce, Shoup, Kinzie & Gonyea, 2008; Palmer, Maramba & Dancy, 2011; Strange & Banning, 2001; Tinto & Goodsell - Love, 1993). The purpose of this study was to explore the role of physical space on student involvement and community. The methodology was ethnography and the methods of data collection included photo elicitation and semi - structured interviews. This qualitative study presents the visual and interview data from 9 participants enrolled at a research university in the South. The student participants reported that they developed meaningful connections with their peers through interactions in outdoor spaces, student organization offices, academic facilities and recreational areas. The participants felt that many of the physical spaces encouraged interaction and helped to facilitate campus involvement. The findings of this work indicate that the natural and built environments at this university influenced how students discovered, built, and sustained community.

Class of 2016 Abstract / Objectives: The objectives of this study were to (1) evaluate student perceptions of completing a Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) and (2) determine hospital administrators’ awareness of potential student roles and interest in future student involvement in completing their mandated CHNA. Methods: Rural Health Professions Program (RHPP) participants who completed the CHNA course were emailed a link to a survey addressing demographics and satisfaction with the CHNA experience. Rural, not-for profit hospitals who were members of the Arizona Hospital and Health Care Association were selected for inclusion. Representatives from eligible hospitals completed a telephonic interview regarding their CHNA process, results, and interest in collaborating with RHPP students. Results: Twenty-nine students completed the survey (60% participation). In thematic analysis addressing overall satisfaction with the process, the top response was that it was a good learning experience (9 responses). Participants strongly agreed that communities can benefit from student involvement (65%) and 83% believed their CHNA could benefit the community. Of 19 eligible hospitals, 12 completed phone interviews (63% participation). The most commonly reported obstacles to completing a CHNA were: lack of resources, time, and community participation. Pharmacy was involved in the process at five of the facilities (41%). After describing the RHPP, 10 respondents indicated interest in student involvement in their CHNA (83%). Conclusions: There is potential for a mutually beneficial student-community collaboration, providing hospitals with additional resources while enhancing student engagement and community impact. This partnership could also increase pharmacy representation in the CHNA process, as less than half of hospitals reported pharmacy involvement.

In Malawi, the new Biology curriculum draws from constructivist approaches. The Biology teaching syllabus emphasises the use of students’ experiences as a resource and the use of active student involvement strategies when teaching the curriculum to enhance conceptual understanding. However, inspection reports show that students are less actively involved in the lessons and the teachers rarely draw from their students’ prior experiences to enhance conceptual understanding. In this study, I investigated some factors affecting four teachers’ use of constructivist approaches when teaching the new biology curriculum in Malawi. Information was collected on the four teachers’ understandings of active student involvement in lessons and students’ experiences, the extent to which the four teachers involved students and built on students’ experiences to enable comprehension of science concepts in the Biology lessons and the factors that promoted/ hindered the use of these practices. Data was collected through lesson observations and interviews with teachers using an observation guide and an interview schedule respectively. Four Biology teachers, two from community secondary schools and two from conventional secondary schools were observed and interviewed. I found that all the four teachers understood students’ experiences as prior knowledge from previous school learning. The teachers understood active student involvement in relation to the type of schools they were teaching. For the teachers in community schools, involving students meant engaging them in group discussion while to the teachers in conventional schools it meant students doing experiments / practical work. Their teaching focused on giving information and little was done to develop students’ metacognitive abilities. According to the four teachers, pressure to cover the syllabus before the national examinations; lack of text books and laboratory equipment; lack of motivation among students; students’ backgrounds; and inadequate students’ fluency in the English language are some of the factors that affect their implementation of the constructivist approaches. Based on the lessons I observed, the teachers’ knowledge of subject matter and teachers’ understandings of the constructivism concept also affect the use of constructivist approaches when teaching Biology in Malawi.

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The purpose of this study was to describe what kind of student-faculty interactions are occurring in the context of academic student organizations as well as identify the quality and quantity of such interactions and what factors are involved with meaningful interactions. The study also determined how these interactions might differ from those occurring in other college activities and how the factors of classification, organizational status, and institutional size relate to quality and quantity of interactions in both contexts. An instrument was developed for the study using all student-faculty interactions identified by previous researchers. A total of 104 undergraduate students from four different institutions responded to the instrument. All were members of an academic student organization. Results indicated that almost all of the students had faculty advisors for their organizations. In addition, 99 percent of participants had at least one interaction with faculty since they started college. Another 81 percent had at least one interaction with faculty within their academic student organization, and 96 percent had at least one interaction with faculty within their other college activities. Over three-quarters (78 percent) said they had interactions with faculty in both their academic student organization and other college activities. Interactions were found to occur but were infrequent overall and did not differ significantly between academic student organizations and other college activities. However, there was a trend for participants to have a higher quantity of interactions within their organizations than through other activities. Most of the interactions reported by participants lasted longer than 10 minutes, which was the standard by which some researchers measured quality. For institutional size, a pattern of responses indicated that participants from small institutions may have a higher quality and quantity of interactions with faculty than their peers from large institutions. Whether or not a student served as a member or a leader in their academic student organization did appear to impact the interactions they had with faculty. Leaders reported more interactions with faculty in their organizational context than did members.

Higher education institutions are tasked with providing opportunities in and out of the classroom that provide students opportunities for a successful college experience. First year student expectations of the college experience initially influence selection of academic and social activities. Unmet or unrealistic expectations may lead to poor academic outcomes, stunted social development, and attrition. This study focused on traditional first year students at the onset of their college career. Through selection of anticipated field of major study, GPA, and extracurricular activities, students initially identify potential academic activities and potential social activities. This study provided quantitative data in an effort to identify possible relationships between and among those intentions. Student selection of major field of study may drive academic progress and influence selection of social activities. This study used the College Student Expectations Questionnaire (CSXQ) responses of 3272 first time in college (FTIC) students who attended a large public university in the southeast during the fall 2012 semester. Results, conclusions, significance, and implications of the work to the discipline are reported here.

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External and internal stakeholders in higher education are asking for accountability about what takes place in the classroom (Alexander, Clinton, and Kean, 1986; Hart Research Associates, 2010; Spellings, 2006). They want to be assured that the learning institutions claim is occurring on campus is in fact happening (Alexander, 2000). In response, academic leaders have produced information about active learning strategies in classrooms (Seifert, Pascarella, Wolniak, and Cruce, 2006; Tsui, 2002; Umbach and Wawrzynski, 2005), student approaches to learning (Biggs, Kember, and Leung, 2001), and faculty-student interaction that lead to increased use of higher order thinking skills (Kuh, 1995; Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991; Reason, Terenzini and Domingo, 2007). Although there is extensive literature on learning that occurs in academic settings on college campuses, data on whether students are engaging in higher order thinking skills in non-academic settings are less prevalent. This study sought to understand whether students' higher order thinking skills (HOTs) are influenced by their involvement in non-academic activities (NAIs). I analyzed data from college seniors who completed the 2010 National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to address two questions. First, I explored what factors emerged from the items about non-academic involvement (NAI) on the NSSE. Second, multiple regression models were employed to determine the extent to which variance in HOTs could be explained by these NAI factors. There were 14 items on the 2010 NSSE that, based on literature, measured frequency with which students engaged in NAIs. Exploratory factor analysis revealed two independent factors consisting of 7 items: Relationships (3 items) and Diverse Perspectives (4 items). These two factors explained 21% of variance in students' higher order thinking skills. Students who are exposed to diversity and develop close relationships use HOT skills more frequently. This suggests implications for those who work in admissions, student affairs, and human resources, among others. The findings also inform policies related to promotion and tenure as well as student involvement. / Ph. D.