Psychometric validation of a growth Mindset and Team Communication Tool to measure self-views of growth mindset and team communication skills

The Intersection of Growth Mindset and Accreditation in Pharmacy Education

OBJECTIVES

To describe existing growth mindset literature within pharmacy and health care education, describe how a growth mindset can be beneficial in the accreditation process, and propose potential ways to promote a growth mindset in faculty, preceptors, students, and staff within pharmacy education.

FINDINGS

To help pharmacy learners develop a growth mindset, existing literature emphasizes the need for a shift toward and aligning assessment with a growth mindset, helping to create self-directed adaptive learners, leading to health care providers who can adjust their practice to tackle expected and unexpected challenges throughout their careers. Strategies to create a culture of growth mindset identified include training faculty and learners on growth mindset and developing new assessments that track a learner's growth. Recommendations for pharmacy educators include encouraging educators to assess their own growth mindset and use a variety of teaching methods and provide feedback on learner effort that encourages the process of learning rather than focusing on individual attributes, traits, and results.

SUMMARY

Growth mindset intersects with accreditation standards for both professional degree programs and providers of continuing pharmacy education. Continuing professional development process is one way to encourage faculty, staff, and students to develop a growth mindset. While a growth mindset can have many positive impacts on pharmacy accreditation, it is essential to recognize that achieving and maintaining accreditation is a multifaceted process involving numerous factors. A growth mindset can positively influence pharmacy education accreditation by fostering a culture of continuous improvement, innovation, resilience, student-centeredness, data-driven decision-making, collaboration, and effective leadership.

Lifelong Learning Indicators in Medical Students After a Novel Communication Skills Session

CONTEXT

A growth mindset and mastery approach have gained attention as useful learning orientations in medical education, however few studies of interventions to foster these orientations exist.

OBJECTIVES

We sought to discover whether a communication skills session on delivering serious news could foster a communication growth mindset and/or a mastery approach in medical students.

METHODS

This was an interventional survey study of third-year medical students before and after a session on delivering serious news. Students were administered a communication mindset survey before and after the session; achievement goal and learning environment surveys were administered after the session. Chi-square tests were used to assess the difference in pre and post mindsets. Logistic regression was used to determine the odds of achieving a mastery approach with pre- and post-communication growth mindset as the independent variables.

RESULTS

Students' communication growth mindset increased from 79% (n = 186) before the intervention to 92% (n = 142) after the intervention. Achievement goal analysis demonstrated that 64% (n = 91) of students had a mastery approach, 14% (n = 20) had a performance approach and 22% (n = 32) had an avoidant approach. Ninety-nine percent (n = 151) felt the session provided a safe learning environment. The odds of having a mastery approach correlated with both pre and post-intervention growth mindset, with post-session growth mindset having the strongest correlation.

CONCLUSIONS

A novel communication skills session on delivering serious news fostered a communication growth mindset in third year medical students. Most students exhibited a mastery approach to learning; this approach was more likely when they had a growth mindset.

Development and validation of a scale to measure team communication behaviors

Introduction

With the COVID-19 pandemic, remote work was increased all over the globe. As a consequence, workers had to adapt their communication behaviors to smoothly coordinate work in their flexible teams (i.e., when team members divide work between the office and their homes). Drawing on relational coordination theory, we constructed and validated a scale to capture the most relevant team communication behaviors.

Methods

We employed interviews and focus groups to construct the scale, refined the scale based on three samples with employees working flexibly and finally validated the scale with 130 teams from diverse organizations.

Results

Our scale comprises three dimensions: focused communication, knowledge sharing and spontaneous communication. All three dimensions showed convergent validity with team planning and discriminant validity with time-spatial flexibility. Also, predictive validity with collective efficacy and team viability was achieved for focused communication and knowledge sharing. Spontaneous communication only predicted collective efficacy, but not team viability.

Discussion

We conclude that the TCS is a reliable and valid measure for assessing team communication and contribute by focusing on behaviors.

Design and development of a continuous glucose monitoring educational module for students and practicing pharmacists

INTRODUCTION

This study aimed to investigate a 2-week, hands-on continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) module on third-year pharmacy students' and practicing pharmacists' knowledge and confidence.

METHODS

This was a prospective, single-center study. Week 1 included a CGM lecture and sensor placement. Participants then wore a CGM device for 1 week. Week 2 included reviewing CGM reports and patient cases, examining participants' reports, and discussing experiences. Pre-, immediate post-, and long-term post-surveys were administered to assess CGM-related knowledge, confidence, and clinical use. Immediate and long-term change in knowledge and confidence were assessed using repeated measures analysis of variance.

RESULTS

Pre- and immediate post-surveys were completed by 36 students and five pharmacists. Student CGM knowledge improved significantly. Students reported improved confidence for all CGM-specific tasks. Results from the pharmacist participants showed similar trends. Student confidence was maintained long-term, while knowledge trended downward. All participants stated they would recommend the activity.

CONCLUSIONS

Students and pharmacists demonstrated improved knowledge and confidence following this 2-week, hands-on CGM module. A hands-on CGM pedagogy is effective at increasing knowledge and confidence regarding this technology.

Mindset and team communication in pharmacists: Examination of pharmacist's self-views

OBJECTIVES

Pharmacists provide care in a complex adaptive system, which requires action and teamwork to address unexpected outcomes. We assessed practicing pharmacists' self-views of growth mindset and team communication across multiple practice settings.

DESIGN

The validated Growth Mindset and Team Communication (GMTC) tool, a multicomponent quantitative and qualitative survey instrument was used to conduct a descriptive study of pharmacist self views.

SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS

Survey instrument was distributed electronically to all licensed North Carolina pharmacists.

OUTCOME MEASURES

The survey consisted of 4 sections: (1) growth mindset self-evaluation (14 questions), (2) team communication self-evaluation (13 questions), (3) description of previous teamwork experience (1 question), and (4) demographics (8 questions). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, and responses to the open-ended question were assessed using qualitative content analysis.

RESULTS

A total of 507 pharmacists participated in the survey. Participants reported primary practice settings, 42.1% in community, 38.9% in health system, and 17.3% in other settings, and 52.1% reported more than 20 years' total pharmacy experience. The total GMTC scale average score was 81.9 ± 7.9 out of 108 possible points. The growth mindset subscale indicated an overall average score of 43.5 ± 4.4 out of 56 possible points The team communication subscale indicated an overall average score of 38.3 ± 5.2 out of 52 possible points. The self-view of a growth mindset was not affected by years of pharmacy experience or primary practice site, but additional teamwork credentials were positively correlated with the overall GMTC score driven by the team communication subscale.

CONCLUSIONS

A growth mindset is prevalent among experienced pharmacists from multiple practice settings. Pharmacists recognize teamwork as an essential work element and rate their team communication skills highly.

The other side of "challenging learners": Strategies for teaching and precepting the overachiever and high performer

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A Teamwork Workshop to Improve Pharmacy Students' Growth Mindset and Communication Skills

Objective. To determine the impact of a workshop on the growth mindset and team communication of first year Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) students.Methods. A multi-week workshop was developed for first year pharmacy students. The workshop included completion of the StrengthsFinder 2.0, a session on identifying individual and team member strengths, a session on situational communication and conflict resolution models, and a work-up of two pharmacy scenarios requiring conflict resolution. The workshop was delivered to two intervention groups (fall 2019 and fall 2018) and compared to a control group (fall 2017). A pre-post survey was administered to measure change in students' growth mindset and team communication using the validated Growth Mindset and Team Communication (GMTC) tool. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, independent sample t tests, and chi-square tests to compare difference and association. Focus groups were conducted in fall 2017 and fall 2018 to assess students' views regarding teamwork.Results. Team communication subscale scores increased significantly among students in the intervention group while there was no significant change in these scores among students in the control group. The focus groups reflected that students had overall positive views about team communication and collaboration, which were also supported by discussions of advantages and challenges during teamwork.Conclusion. A teamwork workshop affected pharmacy students' communication skills. Future work should focus on longitudinal measurement of students' self-views to determine the long-term impact of teamwork training interventions.