Creation of a Graduate Oral/Written Communication Skills Course

Abstract

To convert a traditional graduate seminar course into a class that emphasizes written as well as oral communication skills.
Graduate pharmacology/toxicology students presented formal and informal seminars on their research progress and on recent peer-reviewed literature from the field. Students in the audience wrote critiques of the research project or article, as well as of the presentations themselves.
Students were evaluated based on oral presentations, class participation, and a scientific writing component. All faculty members provided constructive written comments and a grade. The course master provided the presenter with a formal written review and returned a "red pen" revision of each student critique.
This novel seminar/writing course introduces intensive focus on writing skills, which are especially essential today given the large number of graduate students for whom English is not a first language.

Full text

INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND ASSESSMENT
Creation of a Graduate Oral/Written Communication Skills Course
Christopher K. Surratt, PhD
Mylan School of Pharmacy, Duquesne University
Submitted March 23, 2005; accepted May 3, 2005; published February 15, 2006.
Objective. To convert a traditional graduate seminar course into a class that emphasizes written as well
as oral communication skills.
Design. Graduate pharmacology/toxicology students presented formal and informal seminars on their
research progress and on recent peer-reviewed literature from the field. Students in the audience wrote
critiques of the research project or article, as well as of the presentations themselves.
Assessment. Students were evaluated based on oral presentations, class participation, and a scientific
writing component. All faculty members provided constructive written comments and a grade. The
course master provided the presenter with a formal written review and returned a ‘‘red pen’’ revision of
each student critique.
Conclusion. This novel seminar/writing course introduces intensive focus on writing skills, which are
especially essential today given the large number of graduate students for whom English is not a first
language.
Keywords: research, seminar, communication skills, graduate education
INTRODUCTION
There are 3 compelling reasons for a pharmacy school
to insist that its graduate students acquire excellent oral
and written communication skills before receiving the
MS or PhD degree: to ensure that doctor of pharmacy
(PharmD) student training by these teaching assistants
is of the highest quality, to fully prepare the graduate
student for employment, and to enrich the pool of future
pharmacy faculty candidates. The PharmD student train-
ing issue is initially most pressing because graduate stu-
dents typically assume teaching assistant responsibilities
soon after matriculation. A first-year graduate student
rarely has adequate communication skills, let alone teach-
ing experience. The problem appears to be compounded
at research-oriented pharmacy schools, where many of
the graduate students claim English as a second language.
Indeed, there is evidence that the academic performance
of undergraduates may be compromised by foreign-born
teaching assistants.
1
Enhancing the communication skills
of graduate teaching assistants should in turn improve
PharmD education quality.
2
The PharmD student must
acquire these same skills to achieve the level of profes-
sionalism necessary in a successful pharmacist.
3
In the experience of the author, the first-year phar-
macy graduate student typically possesses at best medio-
cre oral presentation skills, and perhaps worse writing
skills. This problem is likely to be more apparent in those
students with an undergraduate pharmacy degree, consid-
ering that 4 or 5 years may intervene between the last
formal writing course and graduation. Whatever the rea-
son for the deficiencies, the oral and written communica-
tion skills of first year Duquesne University School of
Pharmacy (DUSOP) graduate students are suboptimal,
and the basic English writing skills of the international
students are often in desperate need of remediation. The
more glaring writing problems include incomplete or
‘‘run-on’’ sentences and improper punctuation, word
choice, and verb conjugation. The prose is often of a
stream-of-consciousness style, without organization.
Obtaining formal presentation and writing skills could
be the most important aspect of graduate student educa-
tion, as students must learn to speak effectively in depart-
mental seminars as well as at national meetings and in
interviews. They must learn how to write effectively not
only for the sake of a course, but for their thesis, manuscripts,
and future grant applications or annual reports. They can-
not compete in industry, government, or academic set-
tings without these skills. Indeed, when asked which
qualities were most important for obtaining employ-
ment, graduate business students in one study ranked
‘‘communication skills’’ first, above ‘‘graduate qualities’’
Corresponding Author: Christopher K. Surratt, PhD,
Duquesne University, Mellon Hall, Room 453, 600 Forbes
Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15282. Tel: 412-396-5007.
Fax: 412-396-4660. E-mail: surratt@duq.edu
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2006; 70 (1) Article 05.
1

identified by the senior management of the school that
included ‘‘problem solving,’’ ‘‘ability to work collabo-
ratively,’’ and ‘‘body of knowledge.’’
4
Like many American pharmacy schools, the DUSOP
has found it difficult in recent years to find suitable can-
didates to fill faculty vacancies. This emerging problem in
academic pharmacy has been noted previously
5,6
and is
addressed by ‘‘Goal I’’ of the latest AACP Strategic Plan.
7
Given that research grant-driven non-pharmacy schools
receive hundreds of applications for a single faculty po-
sition opening and tuition-driven pharmacy schools re-
ceive far less, the dearth of qualified faculty candidates
appears to be more pronounced for the latter, which may
be due in part to their emphasis on teaching. The oral
communication skills of a successful teacher must be ex-
cellent. In contrast, many grant-supported research fac-
ulty members make little or no didactic contribution to
their department and require only enough skill to orally
communicate their findings to small groups. Some of the
same research faculty members are assigned writing as-
sistants for manuscripts and grant applications, and thus
survive without developing excellent writing skills. The
pharmacy school thus faces a special challenge in finding
a potentially excellent teacher-scholar. One strategy for
increasing the odds of finding faculty candidates with
excellent oral and written communication skills is to de-
velop these individuals at the ‘‘pre-candidate’’ stage, by
properly training pharmacy graduate students in these
skills.
Undergraduate pharmacy courses are effective in en-
hancing oral and written communication skills,
8-10
a fact
even acknowledged by recently graduated pharmacists.
11
Unfortunately, a typical graduate pharmacy program may
only require the student to present a seminar to the de-
partment once or twice a year. There is no training in
formal writing unless the mentor requires and provides
critique of research progress reports.
12
The first formal
writing required of the student may be a manuscript or
the thesis, 3-5 years into the program. Such was the case
for the DUSOP pharmacology/toxicology department un-
til recently, when the traditional graduate seminar course
was converted to the oral/written communication skills
courses described herein. These new courses focus on
enhancing speaking skills, employing videotaping of the
seminar as a means of self-assessment. The courses re-
quire that the graduate student submit formal written cri-
tiques of each weekly seminar for grading, from the first
week of graduate school until the thesis defense. In the
process, the student learns not only formal writing skills,
but how to comprehend and evaluate both the scientific
literature and the research of his/her peers–important
skills for an academic career. These novel courses signif-
icantly enhance the oral and written communication skills
of DUSOP pharmacology/toxicology graduate students,
and could serve as a template for other pharmacy graduate
schools.
DESIGN
Expected Outcomes
DUSOP pharmacology/toxicology graduate students
are expected to comprehend their research project or a rel-
evant peer-reviewed article from the scientific literature
and present the research in a form that allows those new to
the field (their peers) to comprehend, analyze, and eval-
uate the work. Students are expected to write formal cri-
tiques of the research presented as well as the presentation
itself, demonstrating comprehension of the presentation
while providing their own analysis and interpretation of
the findings. The process is expected to develop oral and
written communication skills to the point that the student
can professionally present a seminar at a thesis defense,
national scientific meeting, or job interview, and can sub-
mit a professionally written document for a thesis defense
or for publication or funding. Expected outcomes are
given in Tables 1 and 2.
Educational Environment
The pharmacology/toxicology department is a com-
ponent of the Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the
DUSOP. Its faculty consists of 5 members with primary
appointments and 1 with a secondary appointment. Pri-
mary members are expected to attend the weekly semi-
nar portion of the 2 oral/written communication skills
courses. The number of MS and PhD pharmacology/tox-
icology graduate students and PharmD research-track
students
13
ranges from 12-17 from year to year. The spring
2005 course contained 15 students, one of which was
a PharmD student. Of the 15, 8 were American, 3 were
Indian, 2 were Chinese, and 2 were Nigerian. All of the
foreign students held a student visa. All graduate students
are required to complete these courses each semester for
as long as they are in a degree program (the student cannot
‘‘place out’’ of the course).
Oral Presentation Component
‘‘Work in Progress’’ Seminar. Graduate Pharma-
ceutical Sciences, GPHSC 693, the fall semester DUSOP
graduate pharmacology/toxicology seminar course, was
renamed Oral/Written Communication Skills in Pharma-
cology/Toxicology I as a result of the course revision
described herein. The course requires each student to
deliver, in formal dress, one formal PowerPoint pre-
sentation that updates the Department on his/her thesis
research progress during the last year. In the case of
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2006; 70 (1) Article 05.
2

a first-year student, the presentation must provide details
of the planned thesis research. Scheduling is based on
evenly distributing presenters from a given laboratory
throughout the semester to maximize variety from week
to week, and requiring the more senior graduate students
to present earlier in the semester to serve as role models.
The student first discusses the presentation outline with
the thesis advisor, dividing the research plan into discrete,
testable hypotheses (‘‘specific aims’’). No more than
2 specific aims are recommended for a MS thesis, and
no more than 3 aims for a PhD dissertation. Each aim is
subdivided into specific experiments. The presenter is en-
couraged to practice with the course master, the research
director, and graduate students not familiar with the re-
search field. Only the actual seminar is typically video-
taped, but practice sessions may be videotaped as well.
A 45-minute presentation should be planned, with an
additional 10 minutes allotted for questions that may be
posed during and after the presentation. The first 15 to 20
minutes of the hour should be spent properly introducing
the subject and providing background information suffi-
cient to demonstrate the need for the research. The ratio-
nale behind each specific aim and experiment should be
explained. Potential ‘‘pitfalls’’ in the plan should be in-
dicated, and how these will be addressed should be dis-
cussed. Experimental methodology should be presented,
but only at the level and to the extent that the data are
understood. Each part of each figure or table should be
presented, and the audience should understand the pre-
senter’s interpretations of the results before the seminar is
allowed to proceed. Conclusions should be provided
whenever possible, as well as future directions of the
work. Speculations on the meaning of research findings,
when identified as such, are encouraged. This practice
stimulates discussions that could significantly improve
the thesis and subsequent publications, and that may lead
to a future troubleshooting session that spares the speaker
(or a student in the audience) from an unfruitful research
Table 1. Criteria for Grading Oral Presentations
Delivery
d
Was the speaker poised and smooth in delivery? When interrupted, could the speaker resume the presentation without
difficulty?
d
Was the pace appropriate? Did the presenter speak too rapidly to be understood?
d
Was the speaker articulate, and were words properly enunciated?
d
Did the speaker project his/her voice, make regular eye contact with the audience, and connote confidence via body language?
d
Was the time allowed to read and comprehend the slide sufficient? Were the text slides paraphrased or read verbatim?
Quality of slides/transparencies
d
Were the schematic diagrams understandable to the lay scientist?
d
Were the figures and tables of appropriate size, sharpness and color? Were they properly annotated?
d
Was too much information presented per slide?
Content
d
Did the speaker adequately explain why this study was necessary?
d
Was the subject introduced with enough background information for the lay scientist to follow the research? Was more
background information presented than was necessary to understand the research project or article?
d
Did the speaker appear to understand the project or article?
d
Could the speaker relate the article to his/her own research?
d
Was a central hypothesis for the work presented?
d
Were the methods made understandable to the lay scientist?
d
Did the speaker routinely digress during explanations?
Organization
d
Did the presentation contain all necessary elements, constructed in a logical sequence? (Rationale, background information,
methodology, experimental design, data, results, intermittent summaries including interpretation, author and presenter
conclusions, cumulative summary, future directions, strengths/weaknesses, audience questions)
Questions
d
Could the speaker answer simple clarification questions that would indicate that (s)he had thoroughly read the article?
d
Could the speaker answer more complex questions that would indicate a solid grasp of methodologies, experimental design,
and findings and their implications?
d
Did the speaker demonstrate higher order thinking by independently identifying strengths and weaknesses of the research or
the article or promising future directions? Could the speaker pose ‘‘thought questions’’ to the audience?
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2006; 70 (1) Article 05.
3

direction. It is also hoped that the ‘‘works in progress’’
format will facilitate exchange of methodologies among
the DUSOP pharmacology/toxicology laboratories and
thus benefit all of the various research programs. The
grading criteria (Table 1) reflect the desired outcomes
of the oral presentation.
Literature Review (‘‘Journal Club’’) Seminar.
GPHSC 694, the spring semester graduate pharmacol-
ogy/toxicology seminar course, was renamed Oral/Writ-
ten Communication Skills in Pharmacology/Toxicology
II. In this course, each student presents a recently pub-
lished peer-reviewed scientific article of his/her choosing,
subject to the approval of the course master. The article
must be approved no later than 2 weeks before the pre-
sentation date. Students are encouraged to browse
PubMed, Current Contents, or similar literature databases
when searching for a suitable article, consulting the thesis
advisor when necessary. The paper should be no more
than 3 years old and preferably published within the last
year, and must report novel findings (ie, the paper must
not be a review article). The subject matter does not nec-
essarily have to fall within the fields of pharmacology or
toxicology, but should communicate concepts or methods
applicable to those in a pharmacology/toxicology depart-
ment. The article should be of interest to at least some
students outside of the laboratory of the presenter, as op-
posed to a paper only appreciated by the cognoscenti in
the presenter’s field of study. Photocopies or PDF print-
outs of the article must be placed in student and faculty
mailboxes (or PDF files e-mailed to all relevant students
and faculty members) no later than 48 hours before the pre-
sentation. These copies must be sufficiently clear such that
the reader can independently follow the figures and text.
For this seminar, both the dress and the type of pre-
sentation are less formal, the latter meaning that a ‘‘chalk
talk’’ or a presentation using transparencies on an over-
head projector should be delivered rather than a Power-
Point presentation. The rationale behind this change in
format between semesters is that the type of seminar given
depends on the situation or venue, and the student should
be prepared to speak effectively regardless of the condi-
tions. A 45-minute seminar similar to that described
above for the GPHSC 693 course should be planned.
There are 2 principal differences between the semesters.
First, in keeping with the informal journal club format,
students are encouraged to ask more questions throughout
the presentation instead of waiting until the end. This is
meant to force the presenter to ‘‘think on his/her feet,’’ and
to simulate a thesis defense or interview atmosphere. Sec-
ond, the presenter focuses on critically analyzing the lit-
erature article for strengths and weaknesses, and the
student audience participates in this process, as if a man-
uscript is being reviewed for journal publication. The
speaker should conclude the presentation by relating the
work to his/her research or explaining the applicability of
a new method to existing departmental research programs.
Table 2. Criteria for Grading Written Critiques
Format
d
Is the submitted Word file professional in appearance? Are 12-point type and double spaced, full-justified paragraphs used with
1-inch margins?
d
Are the two paragraphs 4 or 5 sentences each, and balanced in size? Does the critique exceed one page?
d
Was the critique submitted before the deadline?
Grammar
d
Are words spelled correctly? Are misunderstandings of word meanings evident? Is the most appropriate word chosen? Are
informal words and phrases avoided?
d
Is the punctuation correct? Are clauses appropriately joined with commas, hyphens, semicolons or colons? Are complete
sentences used? Are ‘‘run-on’’ sentences used?
d
Are nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs properly used and positioned in the sentence? Are verbs conjugated?
d
Are ideas organized in a logical fashion?
Content
d
Is Paragraph 1 a critique of the research project or literature article, and not a summary? Is Paragraph 2 a critique of the
presentation, and not a summary?
d
Are the comments superficial (eg, noting a typographical error), or do they indicate higher-order thinking (eg, noting an
experimental design flaw and proposing an improvement)?
d
Are the criticisms constructive?
d
Is an understanding of the research presented evident?
Science writing aspects
d
Is the passive voice used to indicate that the data and results are recorded history and not ongoing developments?
d
Are opinions and speculations distinguished from findings and facts?
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2006; 70 (1) Article 05.
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Written Component
A 1-page, formally written scientific abstract must be
provided by the presenter to all departmental faculty
members and graduate students at least 48 hours before
the presentation. In order to train the student to commu-
nicate scientific findings in general terms (eg, for annual
reports, foundation grant applications, and the lay press,
a second abstract that is written for the lay person is now
required of the presenting graduate student. The course
master and the thesis advisor offer constructive criticism
of both abstracts a week before the presentation. The ab-
stract writing requirement pertains only to the fall semes-
ter GPHSC 693 course.
For both semesters, students write critiques of most of
the presentations. For the 15-week schedule, the student
can elect not to write a critique for any 5 seminars. The
critique must be submitted to the course master by e-mail
as a Word file by the Monday following the Thursday
seminar. Critiques should be short (2 paragraphs of 4
sentences each) and should take no more than 30 minutes
to write. Paragraph 1 should discuss the strengths and
weaknesses of the research project (GPHSC 693 course)
or literature article (GPHSC 694 course) with respect to
its scientific rationale, experimental design, clarity, and
importance to the field. This paragraph should not provide
a summary of the research plan or literature article. Par-
agraph 2 should discuss the presentation itself in a way
that provides constructive criticism for the speaker. The
speaker does not read these student critiques, but anony-
mous comments from the critiques are paraphrased in
a formal critique written by the course master for the pre-
senter. Students are instructed not to use the 4 sentences of
the second paragraph to make comments such as, ‘‘He did
a good job,’’ which conveys little. Instead, specific com-
ments on presentation content and delivery are expected
(criteria are listed in Table 2). The 2 paragraphs should be
formally written and of manuscript quality.
Class Participation
All students are expected to contribute to the in-class
discussion of the research project or literature article as
part of their grade. Senior students are expected to lead
this exercise. The faculty members play a secondary role,
usually as facilitators or to resolve an impasse. The class
was instructed that asking simple ‘‘clarification’’ ques-
tions of the speaker did not count as ‘‘participation,’’
and that questions or comments that reflected higher-
order thinking and elicited discussion were expected.
Attendance
Attendance and participation are mandatory for as
long as the student is in the degree program. An unex-
cused absence results in an additional presentation re-
quired of the offender during that semester, and an
unexcused absence on the day the student is scheduled
to present results in 2 additional presentations during that
semester. If the student obtains an excused absence (eg,
because of the death of an immediate family member,
debilitating illness, or a scientific meeting out of town)
on his/her seminar date, it is the responsibility of the stu-
dent to switch dates with another student. Absences un-
resolved to the satisfaction of the course master result in
an ‘‘incomplete’’ (‘‘I’’) grade for the semester, which is
converted to an ‘‘F’’ unless an additional presentation is
given during the following semester.
ASSESSMENT
Self-assessment
To allow the student presenter to most directly assess
his/her own performance, all seminars were videotaped.
A VHS tape copy was given to the presenter 1 week after
the seminar, and the course master kept an archival copy
that other students could access for instructional pur-
poses. A web site with streaming video of the seminar
was also created for the occasional student who had com-
menced employment outside of Pittsburgh but still had to
participate in the course until his/her thesis was success-
fully defended. Presenters were encouraged to watch the
tape or streaming video with the course master to evaluate
their performance in the context of the criteria found in
Table 1, or to at least review the video on their own. The
course master and other faculty members made a special
effort to assist first-year students in their preparation, and
international students were offered the same assistance
when necessary. Duquesne University assesses the oral
and written English communication skills of all new in-
ternational students via videotaped practice lectures and
writing samples, and those found lacking must complete
‘‘English as a second language’’ courses.
Assessment by Other Students
All students evaluated the performance of each pre-
senter in the second paragraph of their 1-page critique of
the presentation (see ‘‘written component’’ section
above). Once the students realized that their presenting
colleague would never see the critiques, their writing be-
gan to include candid yet constructive criticisms such as
those given in Table 1. Chief criticisms included (1) too
rapid delivery; (2) verbatim reading; (3) poor explana-
tions of schematic diagrams, experimental design, or
methodology; and (4) failure to identify non-obvious
weaknesses in the research or article. Excerpts from these
critiques, combined with those from critiques by faculty
members in attendance, influenced the official letter of
critique written and the grade given by the course master.
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2006; 70 (1) Article 05.
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Assessment by the Faculty Member
Grading for both courses was divided evenly between
the oral and written contributions of the student. The sem-
inar presentation accounted for 35% of the total grade,
and class participation was assigned 15%. The writing
component, consisting of the weekly critiques, repre-
sented 50% of the grade. The seminar abstracts prepared
by the presenter for the ‘‘work-in-progress’’ seminar (693
course) were not graded; these were refined by the student
with the aid of the course master, and served as practice
sessions in formal writing. Another key aspect of the con-
version from mere seminar courses to the new ‘‘oral/writ-
ten communication’’ format was the switch from ‘‘pass/
fail’’ to ‘‘A-F’’ grading. In the opinion of the course mas-
ter (the author), imposing ‘‘A-F’’ grading clearly im-
proved the quality of the presentations and the written
critiques and increased the level of participation of the
students in the audience. Prior to this change, several
students performed just well enough to avoid having to
repeat the exercise. On average, 4 of the 5 pharmacology/
toxicology faculty members were in attendance (rarely
only 3, frequently all 5). The criteria used by faculty
members in arriving at a presentation grade are listed in
Table 1. Constructive comments seeking to rectify prob-
lems related to outcomes implied in Table 1 were com-
municated to the course master. Many of the grading
criteria/outcomes found in Table 1 were present in the
course description/syllabus distributed to students and
faculty members at the beginning of the semester. Beyond
this, no overt attempt to normalize criteria among faculty
members was made, but faculty critiques indicated that
the same criteria were being employed. The presentation
grade was determined by averaging grades provided by all
pharmacology/toxicology faculty members in atten-
dance, with a composite grade from the student critiques,
as estimated by the course master. Faculty members were
instructed to use the following scale in assigning presen-
tation grades: an ‘‘A1’’ represented an outstanding per-
formance, one that could not be improved upon; an ‘‘A’’
indicated that the student performed as well as one could
reasonably have expected; an ‘‘Aÿ’’ meant that the stu-
dent could improve in some significant aspect of an other-
wise excellent performance; a ‘‘B1’’ suggested an above
average but not stellar performance; a ‘‘B’’ indicated an
average performance; a ‘‘Bÿ’’ grade meant that the per-
formance was below par, but passable; a grade of ‘‘C1’’
indicated that the seminar was unacceptable, and that
another presentation on a different subject (in the case
of the GPHSC 694, or ‘‘Journal Club,’’course) must be
prepared and delivered at the end of the semester. In av-
eraging the above letter grades, point values of 4.3, 4.0,
3.7, 3.3, 3.0, 2.7 and 2.3 were assigned, respectively, and
the course was graded using the traditional 4-point GPA
scale.
The course master wrote a formal letter of critique to
each presenter for each seminar, which included the
grade, identification of strengths and weaknesses of the
presentation, and useful comments from other faculty
members and student peers. In arriving at a grade, the
faculty member took into account first-year graduate stu-
dent or undergraduate status, and whether English was the
student’s second language. Typical strengths of the pre-
sentation were the level of organization, background
research, and preparedness for questions. Typical weak-
nesses were recognizing design flaws and answering the
‘‘deeper’’ questions that required application of a tech-
nique or finding to another biological system. Consulta-
tion with the course master was encouraged toward
improving subsequent presentations.
The class participation grade was determined solely
by the course master, based on the number and quality of
comments made by the student in the seminar audience.
Letter grades for participation were assigned, in a manner
loosely based on the scale given above for rating a seminar
presentation, after the fifth, tenth, and fifteenth seminars.
The grades given at the 5- and 10-week marks were esti-
mates of what the final participation grade would have
been if the semester had ended at that point. In other
words, grading for the intermediate thirds of the semester
only served to assess the participation level of the student
so that the student could make corrections accordingly,
and the grade after Week 15 was indeed the final partic-
ipation grade. Eliciting class participation from first-year
graduate and undergraduate students, especially new in-
ternational students, was admittedly difficult. Knowing
little about the subject matter or even the field of study
was daunting to these students, and self-consciousness
about oral English skills also undoubtedly suppressed
participation. Other than taking these issues into account
when grading and assuring the class that there was no such
thing as a ‘‘stupid’’ question or comment, the course mas-
ter did not push these students to participate.
To assess the formal scientific writing of the graduate
students, the course master used the Table 2 criteria to
provide a critique of the student critiques. ‘‘Red pen’’
editing of every student critique was returned to the writer
before the next seminar. The student was encouraged to
challenge the revision of the course master if the editing
was not self-explanatory or was viewed as merely an al-
ternative version of what was written. In addition to con-
sultations with the course master, remediation could
include scheduling classes with the Duquesne University
Writing Center. Occasionally, a student’s writing im-
proved during the semester to the point that the course
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2006; 70 (1) Article 05.
6

master could not significantly elevate it further, in which
case the student was allowed to complete less than 9 cri-
tiques for the course.
Assessment of the Instructor and Courses
Through quantitative and subjective responses on the
Duquesne University teaching evaluation questionnaire
(TEQ), the students indicated their appreciation of the
efforts to improve the courses. The course master has re-
ceived TEQ scores of 4.67 and 5.00 since implementing the
changes, 5.00 being a perfect score on the 5-point Likert
scale employed. The feedback from the 22 completed TEQ
forms included 2 criticisms but was otherwise positive. The
more legitimate complaint was that the criteria for grading
presentations and class participation were unclear to the
student. These criteria have since been explained to the
class by the course master, and student self-assessments
of these gradeswere consistent with the grades given by the
course master. The second criticism was that the students
should not have to repeat the 2 courses each year. While
this is an admittedly unusual curricular requirement, the
students nevertheless acknowledged that they made prog-
ress with each semester. Other advantages of these ‘‘per-
petual’’ courses are that the senior students stimulate
discussion of the subject presented and provide guidance
to junior students with respect to critical thinking and pre-
sentation skills. The substantial amount of work involved
with the course may also provide extra incentive for stu-
dents to graduate in a timely fashion.
The most positive aspects of the courses identified by
the students were the critique-writing process, the course
master’s formal letter of critique, and the seminar video-
taping. The students most appreciated receiving the ‘‘red
pen’’ editing of their critiques, which indicated exactly
how their writing fell short and the next steps toward
improving. Students commented that they became more
confident in their writing and found writing manuscripts
and other formal documents less daunting, consistent with
the outcome previously reported for a BS Pharmacy sci-
entific writing course.
14
Students also felt that the formal
letter of critique, coupled with analysis of the videotape,
improved future seminar presentations. Learning from
videotape can be as effective as instructor-directed teach-
ing in helping students improve communication skills.
15
One student mentioned that he would never have recog-
nized and addressed the negative aspects of his ‘‘body
language’’ during a presentation as pointed out by the
course master if not for the videotape. The most recent
graduate of the DUSOP pharmacology/toxicology pro-
gram, currently a postdoctoral fellow at a prestigious re-
search institute, recently mentioned to her thesis advisor
that the revised seminar courses constituted the strongest
feature of her graduate education and helped prepare her
for the postdoctoral interview seminar.
DISCUSSION
The students felt that reviewing videotapes of their
performances improved their presentation skills, in keep-
ing with previous findings.
16
The students also reported
that their comprehension of oral and written information,
and especially their ability to analyze and evaluate pri-
mary data, had improved from the practice of writing the
seminar critiques, as had their ability to write formal sci-
entific prose. The 2-paragraph, 1-page writing format may
not improve all aspects of the student’s formal writing.
Skills involved in writing manuscripts or theses, such as
organizing paragraphs and sections or proper citation of
references, are not addressed by the exercise. Unfortu-
nately, these aspects are necessarily beyond the scope of
the course. Nevertheless, 2 faculty members commented
that their graduate student manuscript and thesis writing
had noticeably improved, and attributed this to these
courses. All of these skills are critical to succeed in aca-
demic pharmacy or other biomedical science fields
17
;
thus, DUSOP pharmacology/toxicology graduate stu-
dents should be well positioned in this regard for produc-
tive careers. PharmD students also need early intervention
in building oral and written communication skills,
18-20
and the 2 courses described above were found to be ex-
tensible to PharmD students involved in the DUSOP
‘‘research track’’ concentration.
13
It is hoped that the im-
mersion in scholarship entailed by these courses will stim-
ulate PharmD interest in an academic pharmacy career.
Regardless of career path, acquiring the oral and written
communication skills described herein cannot help but
improve the professional prospects of pharmacy students.
SUMMARY
This novel seminar/writing course was well received
by both graduate students and the pharmacology/toxicol-
ogy faculty members. The audiences were interactive and
provided valuable feedback that should improve the re-
search plan of the presenting student. With the help of the
senior graduate students, novice speakers became capable
presenters, as evidenced by critiques supplied by students
and faculty members in the audience. There was, never-
theless, room for improvement regarding class participa-
tion, and an ‘‘on-line discussion forum’’
21
may be
employed in the future to ensure that the non-presenting
students have read and cogitated on the research abstract
or literature article prior to the presentation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I thank Dr. Vicki Davis for improving the abstract
writing and seminar preparation components of the
American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2006; 70 (1) Article 05.
7

GPHSC 693 course upon assuming course master respon-
sibilities.
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