Awareness of Disabilities in Pharmacy Program Recruitment Material: Are we doing Enough?

Introduction: Targeted recruitment of students with disabilities is a novel area in pharmacy education and may help to attract qualified students in light of decreasing applicant numbers. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explore the visibility of disabilities within online recruitment material for pharmacy programs and to determine the location of targeted information available to prospective students with disabilities. Methods: The top 50 ranked programs offering a professional pharmacy degree under the Pharmacy and Pharmacology QS subject rankings were identified and included if recruitment material was published in English. Online recruitment material was reviewed for presence of persons with disabilities in photos, presence or description of persons with disabilities in videos, information specific to disabilities on the program website, and information specific to disabilities on the university website (if not located on the program website). Results: For inclusion, 41 out of 50 pharmacy schools met the criteria. No institutions displayed visual student disabilities in pictures or videos of recruitment material. Overall, the majority of institutions (88%) provided information for prospective students with disabilities. The type of information offered was highly variable across institutions. Of the top 50 pharmacy schools in the USA, 85% have information on student disability through the pharmacy homepage and 75% of institutions in Europe provided information through the university homepage. Interestingly, 62.5% of schools in Asia did not provide student disability information. Conclusions: Recruitment material for pharmacy degree programs should be current, inclusive, and reflective of student populations eligible to be admitted. This study found a distinct underrepresentation of students with disabilities and information pertaining to disabilities within recruitment material for a sample of international pharmacy programs.( *This study has now been published. Hussain FN, Smith A, Wilby K. The Visibility of Disabilities within Pharmacy Program Recruitment Material. INNOVATIONS in pharmacy. 2020;11(3). doi: https://doi.org/10.24926/iip.v11i3.3339.)

An investigation into the relationship between student achievement and curriculum knowedge of special education co-teachers

The balance of awareness of student disabilities, providing supports and accommodations necessary for the success of special education students, and a high understanding curriculum contents is a challenge for special educators in the co-taught setting. This study investigates the effect the relationship between the number of curricula in which the special educator is co-teaching has, on student achievement. Statistical analysis was conducted to compare both the results on state mandated end of course examinations, and course grades in classrooms where the special education co-teacher was responsible for one curriculum content where they were responsible for two and three curricula. Findings show a significant difference in student achievement only between classrooms where the special educator was responsible for one curriculum and where they were responsible for two. In looking at the mean achievement results for end of course examinations and course grades, students in the classrooms where the special educator was responsible for three curriculum contents earned higher scores. Results indicate that factors or a combination of factors, other than curricula content knowledge of the special education co-teacher, play a greater role in effecting the achievement of the special education students in the co-taught classroom.

2. What do Professors Want to Learn to Improve Their Teaching?

This paper recounts the author’s experience with giving a Needs Assessment for improvement by university teachers. Subjects were from the University of Lethbridge and the 2008 Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE) conference session. Teachers at the University (n=77) indicated they could spend 5-15 hours in teaching development per semester and wanted a variety of information access but favoured quick one-hour workshops. STLHE participants (n=34) were willing to attend three-hour workshops and spend more time per semester (over 20 hours) improving their teaching. Topics that both groups wanted to hear about were teaching efficiently, using student feedback, fostering critical thinking, and marking fairly. STLHE participants were more interested in fostering group work, student writing, and dealing with student disabilities and diversity, whereas the University sample cared more about preventing cheating and presenting the results of their teaching for promotion and tenure. All in all, there were many things that teachers wanted to learn.

High Expense: Disability Severity and Charter School Attendance in Arizona

Much of the literature related to the skimming or cropping of students by charter schools has ignored special education students. This article examines the relationship between the severity of student disabilities and their likelihood of having attended an Arizona charter school in the 2002-2003 school year. After adjusting for student traits, local education agency characteristics, and the mix of available special education services, a multilevel logistic regression analysis suggests that students who had more severe and thus more expensive disabilities were less likely to attend an Arizona charter school. Findings from an ancillary set of hierarchical linear models suggested that special education students enrolled in charter schools were less expensive on average than similar traditional public-school special education students.