Using Formative Feedback to Teach Pharmacy Students to Write Critical Self-reflections

Critical thinking is an essential skill for practising pharmacists. Critical self-reflections have been said to contribute to critical thinking, and formative feedback has been cited as improving student learning. We conducted a two-year study, using mixed methods research, with two cohorts of 1st to 4th year pharmacy students, 76 students in total, to improve their critical self-reflective skills as part of critical thinking. Our pedagogical approaches, unlike the pedagogy of didactic teaching that is historically associated with health professional education, included the writing of critical self-reflections and the use of formative assessment. Students wrote eight self-reflections over four semesters. We provided formative feedback after each self-reflection, which included individual written comments and whole class formative feedback during an explicit instruction class. However, to strengthen the study design we did not provide any feedback between the first and second reflections. Quantitative analysis using a rating scale for the components of knowledge, self-assessment, and critical thinking indicated that students improved in their self-reflections and in their critical thinking, although there were differences between the two cohorts. Qualitative analysis revealed that many students valued the formative feedback and thought it improved their learning, but not all students agreed. We suggest that these pedagogical approaches can cross disciplines.