Measuring a state of mind indicative of thriving using the Student Pharmacist Inventory of Professional Engagement (S-PIPE)
Introduction
Paramount to the profession, and the educators who grow student pharmacists, is the need to understand the mechanisms by which we develop students who embrace the profession, are excited by the profession, become immersed in the profession, and flourish within the profession. Tied to these lofty goals, hidden beneath, is a concept that appears to have consequences on the development of student pharmacists – professional engagement. This research describes the development of an instrument designed to measure professional engagement in student pharmacists, and provides initial validity evidence for this instrument.
Owing its origins to a prior definition of work engagement,1 professional engagement has been defined as “an energizing state of mind towards one's profession characterized by high energy, involvement with a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and being happily engrossed in one's profession.”2, 3 Similar to conceptions of work engagement, it is considered a state of mind rather than direct involvement or participation in a specific activity.2 Prior research has established that other types of engagement (i.e., work engagement, student or academic engagement) are linked to beneficial outcomes.4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
Student engagement at U.S. undergraduate institutions is often measured using the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), which has been shown among first-year undergraduate students to be related to persistence and to academic achievement (i.e. GPA) even after accounting for pre-college characteristics.17 At an institutional level, it has been related to first-year retention rates and 6-year graduation rates.18 As a result, the NSSE is used by undergraduate institutions to benchmark their levels of engagement, compare levels of student engagement to similar institutions, and identify areas where engagement can be improved.19, 20 In addition, the information collected from the NSSE can help inform prospective students' and parents' choice of institution.20
While the NSSE has great value in benchmarking and promoting best practices in undergraduate education, evidence for validity in student pharmacists is lacking.21 Additionally, it has been argued that school engagement is a very different construct of interest than that of professional engagement.2 However, similar to work and student engagement, professional engagement is postulated to also be related to beneficial outcomes for pharmacists and student pharmacists alike.
Furthermore, while benefits have been declared based upon experiences and observations,2, 22 evidence towards the outcomes or drivers of professional engagement remains sparse. This is partially due to the absence of a validated tool to measure professional engagement.
Within practicing medical professionals, professional engagement has been operationalized with a focus on work. For instance, one study measured work engagement and job satisfaction as a measure of professional engagement.23 Another example is the Medical Engagement Scale, created based upon a two-dimensional model of professional engagement, consisting of organizational opportunity and individual capacity, and concerned with relationships, involvement, and motivation.24 The items, subscales, and meta-scales within the Medical Engagement Scale focus on organizational climate and engagement within an organization or business. The subscales include climate for positive learning, good interpersonal relationships, appraisal and rewards effectively aligned, participation in decision-making and change, development and orientation, and commitment and work satisfaction.24 While this scale aptly measures elements of the work engagement of professionals in an organization doing their professional work, it does not appear to gauge the engagement within their profession. This distinction deserves pause. Whereas an individual may be engaged in their work or organization, this does not automatically infer engagement in their profession.
In teachers, professional engagement has been measured using numerous proxies. One group of researchers used planned effort, planned persistence, professional development aspirations, and professional leadership aspirations as measures of professional engagement.25, 26 Another group used participation in professional development activities and professional collaboration (e.g., discussing problems with colleagues, collaborating with teachers in other schools).27 Alternatively, it has been measured using the number of within-school interactions, outside contacts, and involvement in leadership activities.28 Professional engagement has been measured using participation in a variety of teaching-related activities that go beyond minimal effort (e.g., participating in extra-curricular activities, attempts to diversify teaching strategies).29 And finally, among childcare providers, professional engagement has been measured using the number of professional organizations the providers were members of, and the number of professional contacts.30
These operationalized definitions often involve quantifying the number of professional memberships and contacts, efforts above and beyond the typical professional development experiences, and leadership involvement; these are quite different than the above definition of professional engagement, focusing more on effort, participation, membership, and connections than on a state of mind. Engagement within a profession is a much broader and amorphous concept. And for students growing within a profession, the work of the profession is much different than a pharmacist within an organization. Students may engage with the profession in class, in extracurricular activities, in pharmacy work experiences, in outreach and community service, and experiential education. They may even engage with the profession when they are asked for the first time at a family gathering, “Is it ok if I take Medication X with Medication Y?” These varied experiences may result in the cognitive affective state of professional engagement. To measure this state requires going beyond prior methods of operationalizing professional engagement, and necessitates looking beyond established elements of work or school engagement. The Student Pharmacist Inventory of Professional Engagement (S-PIPE) has been developed for measuring professional engagement in students with a focus on capturing the cognitive affective state of engagement within the pharmacy profession. The purpose of this paper is to describe the development process and validity evidence for use of the S-PIPE.
Section snippets
Instrument development
The S-PIPE was developed over a three-year iterative construction process that included inductive (i.e., qualitative data from highly engaged students)3 and deductive (i.e., conceptualization and measurement of other typologies of engagement) item development, and 2 pilot administrations. The complete process is shown in Fig. 1. Initially, 21 items were developed based upon a consensus definition and professionally engaging characteristics emerging from a modified Delphi process with highly
Factor analysis
Eight previously flagged items were removed prior to factor analysis due to low variability, ceiling effects, and item-item correlations greater than 0.6 with multiple items, resulting in 16 items for subsequent analysis. Bartlett's Test of Sphericity was non-significant (chi-square 1953.041, df 120, p < 0.001), providing evidence that the data are factorable.38 The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy was 0.930, suggesting that an appropriate sample size had been achieved relative
Discussion
Availability of a measure for professional engagement has important ramifications for the profession of pharmacy. A measure could be used to gain more insight into the construct. The energy, inspiration, pride and sense of significance that characterize this state of mind are needed by the profession's practitioners. A measure would allow for investigation of factors and interventions that increase or decrease professional engagement, helping the profession, and its practitioners, to better
Conclusion
For those seeking to develop students who embrace the profession, are excited by the profession, become immersed in the profession, and flourish within the profession, measurement of professional engagement is important. The Student Pharmacist Inventory of Professional Engagement is a 16-item instrument with high reliability and three factors, named Belonging, Connectedness, and Meaningful Experience. This initial research provides evidence of content and convergent validity, laying the
Funding
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Conflicts of interest
None.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Drs. Michael Peeters and Robert Bechtol for their thoughtful and thorough review of this work.
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The majority of the work herein was conducted while Dr. Aronson was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Aronson is currently Assistant Professor of Social and Administrative Pharmacy in the Department of Pharmacy Practice at Ohio Northern University Raabe College of Pharmacy.