Quantitative and Qualitative Assessments of Consensus Within Pharmacy's Academic Subdisciplines

• Published in: Journal of pharmacy teaching 2002, Vol.9 (4), p.1-33
• Main Authors: Desselle, Shane P., Collins, Charles C., Harrold, Marc W., Kalis, Michelle M., Quattrocchi, Elaena J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1044-0054; 1540-7365
• DOI: 10.3109/J060v09n04_01

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to measure the perceived level of agreement among pharmacy scholars within each of five academic subdisciplines on what constitutes good teaching and scholarship. An additional objective was to identify teaching and research priorities expressed by these same scholars. Surveys were mailed to a stratified random sample of faculty at 80 colleges and schools of pharmacy. Respondents compared their perceptions of intradepartmental agreement on what constitutes good teaching and scholarship with those of other departments in addition to ranking each subdiscipline on achieving its scientific paradigm. Respondents from all five subdisciplines perceived considerable agreement on what constitutes good teaching and scholarship. They also believed that the content in departmental course offerings was similar in colleges and schools of pharmacy throughout the U.S. Responses to open-ended questions identifying teaching and research priorities indicate a fairly well-defined focus by scholars in each subdiscipline on a core set of issues, although pharmaceutics, pharmacology, and medicinal chemistry may be slightly more mature. Opportunities for interdisciplinary research were identified. Rankings of perceptions of each subdiscipline's progress indicate that pharmacy practice and the social and administrative sciences may need to promote their research accomplishments to other pharmacy subdisciplines.