Impact of reduced idea density on pharmacy students' attainment in pharmaceutical calculations

To register as a pharmacist in the United Kingdom, an exam set by the General Pharmaceutical Council must be undertaken. It involves pharmaceutical calculations and shows variable pass rates. Linguistic factors, such as idea density, affect and predict comprehension time. This trial will evaluate the effect of lowering question idea density on attainment in a pharmaceutical calculations exam aligned to that of the General Pharmaceutical Council This is a single-blind, parallel 2-arm multicentre randomised controlled trial conducted in 14 Universities across the United Kingdom. A 1:1 randomisation and a sample size of 198 pharmacy students will be sufficient to detect a 1-point difference in the mean scores between the intervention and control group during a pharmacy calculation test with two-tails, 80% power and 5% significance level. Each school will recruit a minimum of 14/15 students. Participants will sit two 12-question pharmaceutical calculation tests. All students will take the same baseline test; then, will be randomised and undertake a second test 2-week after, with standard idea density for the control group and lower idea density for the intervention. Primary outcome: the scores obtained by the students undertaking the second calculation test 2-week after the baseline. Secondary outcomes: percentage of students achieving a pass during the second test; effect of demographic characteristics (first or not-first English language speakers, age, ethnicity, year of study, specific learning disability) on students' attainment when lowering idea density Results could inform the development of new standards in pharmaceutical calculations exams. NCT05526365 (registered 31/08/2022)

Alternative medicine · Comprehension · Family medicine · Medical education · Pharmacist · Randomized controlled trial · Sample size determination · Statistics · Computer Science · Health Sciences Research and Education · Innovations in Medical Education · Mathematics · Medicine · Nursing · Pharmaceutical Practices and Patient Outcomes · Psychology · Pharmacy · Surgery

• Too dense to comprehend—or perfectly packed? The divergent effects of propositional density on levels of text memory

  Chaimae Harrag, Abdelkader Sabil et al.•Discourse Processes•2025

  Incluir item

• SPIRIT 2013 Statement

  Open Access•An-Wen Chan, An‐Wen Chan et al.•Annals of Internal Medicine•2013

  Incluir item

• Toward a model of text comprehension and production.

  Walter Kintsch, T A Van Dijk•Psychological Review•1978

  Incluir item

• Spoken propositional idea density, a measure to help second language English speaking students

  Open Access•Andrew M Lunn, Daniel Bürkle et al.•Medical Teacher•2022

  Incluir item

• L2 tolerance of pragmatic violations of informativeness

  Open Access•Shuo Feng•Linguistic Approaches to…•2024

  Incluir item

• Characteristics of effective exams—Development and validation of an instrument for evaluating written exams

  Open Access•Benjamin Froncek, Gerrit Hirschfeld et al.•Studies In Educational Evaluation•2014

  Incluir item