Pamela L. Stamm PharmD, CDE, BCPS and Kristen L. Helms PharmD, Harrison School of Pharmacy, Auburn University, Auburn, AL Background Self assessment is an important element of any profession, and development of this skill should begin within the pharmacy curriculum. Guided self-assessment in the medical profession has been proposed to enhance learner awareness of their strengths and skills and increase integration of external feedback. 1 A third professional (P3) year pharmacy therapeutics course uses problem based learning (PBL) to teach optimal drug therapy. Before discussing a drug class, a group member creates a teaching handout and presents this information to their assigned group. Current assessments superficially evaluate these handouts, so a guided, reflective assignment was designed to stimulate self- assessment and improvement plans for these documents. Objectives To use guided reflection to: Determine the challenges students face when completing their drug class documents Stimulate student driven improvement plans for future documents To assess time needed to complete such a reflection Methods Design: Retrospective, Qualitative Analysis Study Population: Third Professional Year (P3) Student Pharmacists Data Collection: September 2010 Procedures : All P3 student pharmacists were invited via Blackboard® to complete a reflective assignment within E*Value™ MyFolio Guiding questions prompted students to: Identify challenges to document completion Establish a self-improvement plan Document their time spent reflecting Two investigators analyzed all completed reflections regarding drug handouts. Challenges and self-improvement plans were identified, collated, and assigned to broader categories. A third investigator was included to settle any discrepancy in categorization. Statistical Analysis: Descriptive statistics were used. Reflection to identify student challenges in generating drug class handouts and foster self-improvement plans Conclusions Students identified many distinct challenges and methods for improving drug class teaching handouts. Challenges fit into 5 broad categories with 19 distinct categories. Broad categories included: 1.Managing information 2.Finding the information 3.Time management 4.Overall Process 5.Miscellaneous Managing the information (66%) was the most common challenge with discriminating important from unimportant information (45%) being the most frequent subcategory mentioned. Plans for improvement fit into 7 broad categories with 20 distinct plans. Broad categories included: 1.Managing information 2.Finding the information 3.Communicating information 4.Knowing the information 5.Time management 6.Overall Process 7.Miscellaneous Managing the information (60%) was the most commonly cited improvement plan. Students frequently planned to improve utilization of objectives (14%), utilization of resources (13%), their teaching (8%), and their ability to condense (8%), organize (8%), differentiate (7%), and discriminate important from unimportant (8%) information. The majority of students took 30 minutes to complete this reflection assignment Results Implications Reflection assignments can stimulate students to define learning needs and self-improvement plans for a specific course component. Identification of challenges can help faculty assist students already enrolled. Faculty can make plans to help students manage or overcome these challenges in future course offerings. 154 students were invited to complete the reflection 93 (60%) students identified challenges 91 (59%) students identified improvement plans 86 (56%) students identified time needed to complete the reflection 24 (28%) were excluded because their answer suggested they misread the question and they reported the time needed to complete their handouts 134 total student challenges identified 153 total self-improvement plans identified Categories for 134 Student Identified Challenges (n-93) Distinct and Broad Categories # # Managing Information88Finding the Information23 Discriminating 42 Resource utilization & navigation 23 Organizing 13 Formatting 7Time management9 Differentiating 6 Clinical application 4Overall process6 Synthesizing / Integrating 4 Managing conflicting info 3Miscellaneous8 Compiling 3Technology challenges2 Condensing 2Lack of an example2 Summarizing 2Confidence2 Plagiarism 1Referencing2 Interpretation of data 1 Categories for 153 Student Identified Plans (n=91) Distinct and Broad Categories # # Managing Information92Communicating information15 Consider objectives 22Enhanced teaching12 Condensing 12Clarity2 Discriminating 12Confidence1 Organizing 12 Differentiating 11Knowing the information10 Formatting 8 Template 7Time management9 Completeness 3 Summarizing 3Overall process6 Clinical application 1Change Team Process1 Synthesizing 1Systematic approach5 Finding the Information20Miscellaneous1 Resource utilization & navigation 20Technology challenges1 Challenges Plans References 1.Sargeant J, Mann K, Van der Vleuten C, Metsemakers J. “Directed” self-assessment: practice and feedback within a social context. J Contin Educ Health Prof. 2008;28(1): The authors have no personal or financial relationships to disclose. This study was approved by the institutional review board at Auburn University