Student performance deficiencies

There are many types of performance deficiencies, that you might observe in your students. I’d like to just run through some. Just to provide an example of outer there different types of deficiencies. Some might relate to the students knowledge. Some might relate to the students confidence formation. Some might reflect on behavioral problems like a professionalism, or bad attitude. So let’s just run through some of these to give you an idea of diversity a student performance issues. Because each of these we need to be dealt with in a different way. First of all, they might have a limited knowledge base. They might not remember some of the things that they had to learn, when they were taking courses on campus.

You might have to deal with the fact that they just are lacking in some critical knowledge. They might have a fear or lack of confidence and interacting with physicians or nurses or in providing answers. Because they might be a little unsure of themselves. They might exhibit unprofessional behavior or poor appearance. They might be tardiness, this is a common one, to not show up or show up late, can be a real problem. They might be uncooperative or refusal to comply. This would relate to more of a fundamental attitude problem. Even worse would be disrespectful or inconsiderate of some of the people they are working with or for patients in the hospital.

We’ve talked before one of the earlier sessions on the importance of ensuring academic honesty, and avoiding plagiarism and cheating. Some of the students might think this is okay. The pharmacy is a profession that depends very heavily on honesty and integrity. It’s important that such professional values, we strongly up upheld the students understand that type of behavior is not acceptable in the profession. They may simply be poor time managers. They have a hard time getting things done because they don’t stay focused on the task or they get involved in too many things. They may need some direction on how to better manage their time. They might be a lack of follow-through.

They’re supposed to follow up on something and providing information and they forget or they just neglect. They need to be reminded about that. Their assignments might be incomplete or poorly-done and need direction on how to prepare better to complete their assignments. Or they might just disappear not be where they’re supposed to be, and in which case they need better direction on the importance of showing up on time and being in the right place at the right time. And main issue is whatever the performance efficiency might be, how can we identify it, communicate with the students about it, and correct them in a way that produces better performance and better learning outcomes by the students.

That’s what we want to focus in on now. Lastly, the apathetic attitude is a very serious issue. And there has to be ways to increase the motivation of the students. We’ve already talked about ways to put the student in a position where they might encounter experience. That changes that apathy to one of commitment. Spiritual learning principal, the next one, is that corrective actions should be tailored to the performance efficiency. We want to make sure that whatever we do to change that student’s behavior is based on the behavior itself. Because there’s so many different types of performance efficiencies. We want to make sure that we address it in the right way.

The first important consideration is not to ignore the behavior or the performance problem, and hope it will go away. Because it certainly will not. It has to be addressed. And in order to address it, one of the methods I like to share with you, it’s I called the perfect process. This is a method for communicating with students. Actually, it’s a method that can be utilized for communicating over conflict issues with another person is not meeting your expectations. In any type of relationship, whether it be a preceptor and students, a teacher and students, a supervisor and employee, or a parent and a child, or even between two spouses, for many different applications of this communication process.

PERF process will discuss it from the nature of addressing student performance issues. The whole idea with the PERF process, is come to a mutual understanding of the perception of the two parties involved, the preceptor and students. And also the expectation of the preceptor and students, and where there are differences. To identify those differences and see if those differences can be reconciled. With the PERF, at least we can clarify the differences so that they can be considered in whatever resolution, is to be enacted to resolve the deficiency. The P in PERF stands for “perception”. That is the first step in this communication process. Perception is critically important.

And the first step in resolving the perception should be for the preceptor to ask the student to share his or her perception of the deficiency. For example, let’s say the deficiency is the students doing a poor job of preparing the SOAP. The first step would be for the preceptor before indicating with the preceptor thinks of the SOAP, before making any kind of a value judgment about the quality of the SOAP or the student performance and completing the SOAP. First step will be for the preceptor to ask the students what is your perception of the quality of this SOAP. And give the students a chance to explain that.

Second step in dealing with perception, is when the preceptor to them say, “Well! let me tell you my perception now. That you’ve explained to me what you perceive the quality of this SOAP to be. Let me explain my perception of the quality. I don’t think it’s very good and for these reasons.” The discussion convened and sue. After the preceptor given the student opportunity to share his or her perception, and the preceptor has shared his or her perception. Preceptor can have a discussion to identify differences between the two perceptions and see if those differences can be resolved. Regardless of what they resolve, it’s once there’s a good understanding of what the preceptor and the students perceptions are.

Preceptor can then carry the discussion to the next phase, which is expectation. Now in this step, if the first process would be for the preceptor to explain his or her expectation. That’s because the preceptors the one determining the expectations for the rotation. The preceptor is the one setting standards for quality and performance. So the preceptor needs to explain right up front what the expectations are. Once that’s done. Step 2 would be under expectation. It would be for the preceptor to ask the student, “Okay, what are your expectations for this assignment?” Now the students expectations don’t match the preceptors expectation. It needs to be some discussion to identify why there is a disparity. And what the disparity is?

So at the end of these first two processes, reception and expectation. Students should have a clear understanding of what the preceptor’s perception is and this preceptor’s expectation is, toward the deficiency. And student should feel as though he or she has had a chance to express their understanding of the situation in terms of their perception and their expectation. What were pursuing with the PERF process, and addressing a student performance issue, is to come up with a resolution. So the discussion of the perception and expectation is geared toward establishing a resolution so corrective action can be taken. But that shouldn’t be undertaken until perceptions and expectations have been clarified.

Once that’s done, we then proceeded to a step that involves the defining the resolution, which means the problem has to be diagnosed. The diagnosis of the problem, the identification of the problem, involves what I called the “Oz protocol.” Now, the Oz protocol, part of resolution, involves taking a look at the gap between perceptions and expectations. And then based on that gap, evaluating what’s the cause of the deficiency? Why is the student not performing up to expectations? And then develop a corrective action plan based on the diagnosis of the problem or the identification of the problem and the corrective action should be consistent with whatever the diagnosis of the problem is. So, that’s the key aspect here.

As we evaluate perceptions and expectations and progress from that point, to the preceptor, diagnosing what the problem is. Then trying to come up with the corrective action using the Oz protocol. So we’re going to explore what exactly the Oz protocol is. To understand how to accurately diagnose a student deficiency. So you can come up with an action plan, a corrective action plan that is well-suited to correct that deficiency.