Grab an oar: Gathering the team to navigate challenging academic waters of student success

By: Hailey Baird, PharmD; Jaclyn Boyle, PharmD, MS, MBA, BCACP, FASHP; and Hope Hafner, PharmD Candidate

One of the biggest hurdles cited by pharmacy students in our institution is the challenge of navigating life stressors or feelings of burnout while trying to maintain academic success.  Academic challenges are complex and can lead to students being hesitant to seek support. Also, due to the fast-paced nature of curricula, it can be difficult for students to self-identify academic struggles until too late in the course or when their grades are irrecoverable. 

Colleges should identify academic struggles early and proactively communicate support measures. With the focus of identifying effective early interventions in mind, literature supports that both cognitive and non-cognitive factors may influence a student’s potential for academic success.^1,2 Designing an early identification and proactive intervention process that is constructive and engaging from both the college and the student perspective is imperative and supports ACPE 2025 Standard 4.4.b. 

Rethinking Student Success & Academic Support

In 2023, Robinson and colleagues shared many perspectives about the changing dynamics of student success, including the Behavior, Affect, Cognition, Environment, and Integrated Systems (BACEIS) model. The BACEIS model emphasizes that a student’s ability to be successful academically is impacted by a complicated web of internal and external factors.³  Available literature has described key interventions in preventing and addressing academic challenges (Table).^3,4,5

One Institution’s Experience: 

Throughout the last academic year, and in light of  declining admissions trends and outcomes data indicating increased rates of academic struggle, we began a continuous quality improvement effort throughout the last academic year (Figure). We are now deploying the new workflow and integrating changes as feedback and outcomes are evaluated.  

Lessons Learned So Far: 

In the context of the BACEIS model, we aimed to incorporate several aspects of the model into changes in our support process:³ 

• Preventative Strategies: 
  • Early identification: Throughout the restructuring of our program, we were faced with several barriers. First, student data is held across multiple platforms, making it difficult to obtain a complete picture of a student’s academic performance. Integrated data solutions could support early identification,  but would need to be factored into the institutional budget.
  • Academic coaching:  For a successful coaching intervention, students need to share their motivations and struggles. Student struggles may stem from a multitude of sources and one singular path to intervention might not meet the needs of all students. Our university services, course directors, faculty advisors, and Office of Student Success are integrated into communications within our new outreach and support process. The Director of Student Success and our Senior Administrative Coordinator lead the outreach and scheduling of academic coaching appointments.

• Intervention 
  • Student-led development plan: Coaching conversations can elicit a student’s unique needs and  inform a personalized development plan. Hosting coaching conversations built on motivational interviewing principles will create venues which foster behavioral change. These conversations are led by our Director of Student Success and tracked within our learning management system for documentation and accountability purposes. 
  • Process redesign: Our progression committee, assessment committee, university services, faculty involved with remediation, advisors, and Student Success team are collaborating to review existing intervention processes including remediation and progression committee outcomes. As we develop our new workflow, we aim to create a synergistic program that both students, faculty, and staff will feel confident taking part in. 

As we launch our re-designed support system this fall, we will share our challenges and hopeful successes with the Academy. If we’re finding the oars that are most effective, sharing best practices will not only help our respective institutions, but ultimately, and most importantly, the students we collectively serve.

References:

1. Spivey CA, Chisholm-Burns MA, Johnson JL. Factors associated with student pharmacists’ academic progression and performance on the national licensure examination. Am J Pharm Educ. 2020;84(2):7561. https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe7561
2. Chisholm-Burns MA, Berg-Poppe P, Spivey CA, Karges-Brown J, Pithan A. Developing a framework of relationships among noncognitive factors in Doctor of Pharmacy students’ academic performance. Am J Pharm Educ. 2021;85(10):8608. https://doi.org/10.5688/ajpe8608
3. Robinson ET, Cochrane ZR, Akiyode O, et al. Envisioning the future of student success: report of the 2022-2023 AACP Student Affairs Standing Committee. Am J Pharm Educ. 2023;87(3):1-10. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajpe.2023.100559
4. Tafreshi J, Chorbadjian S, Jaradat D, Johannesmeyer S. Supporting students with academic difficulties. Curr Pharm Teach Learn. 2021;13:255-260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cptl.2020.10.008
5. Burning SM, Williams A, Cavanaugh T. The life raft to keep students afloat: Early detection, supplemental instruction, tutoring, self-directed remediation. Curr Pharm Teach Learn. 2022;14:1060-1067. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cptl.2022.07.018

---

Author Bio(s): 

---

Pulses is a scholarly blog supported by a team of pharmacy education scholars.