A measure of teamwork perceptions for team-based learning

Introduction: Teamwork is a developed skill that is essential within pharmacy practice and health care. Exposure to team-based learning (TBL) pedagogy may foster development of this skill. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a measure for perception of teamwork among PharmD students, and then examine a module using TBL pedagogy. Methods: Faculty instructors for a 90-contact hour cardiovascular pharmacotherapy module used TBL pedagogy in teaching 18 hours of the therapeutics topics in that module. To determine a change in their perceptions of teamwork, second-year PharmD students took pre-and post-module surveys. The survey instrument used was previously published with use among medical students. Results: Fifty-eight of 61 PharmD students participated. The Rasch Measurement Model was used to construct measures of student perceptions along a linear and unidimensional "perception of teamwork" continuum. To make the survey unidimensional, seven of the 20 items were removed. The resulting instrument had a reliability of 0.93 and separation of 3.56. Pre-module survey results were 1.1 +/- 2.5 logits, whereas afterwards were 1.3 +/- 2.4 logits. Change in students' perceptions were varied at 0.2 +/- 2.6 logits (paired t-test p +/- 0.6293). Older students had a negative correlation (r = -0.27, p = 0.04), whereas pharmacy work experience had a positive correlation with change in teamwork perception (r = 0.31, p = 0.02). Conclusion: This instrument appears psychometrically valid and reliable to measure changes in PharmD students' perceptions of teamwork with TBL. Study results led to reflection on attributing factors for module improvements by involved faculty. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Inc.