A quantitative perspective on the correlation between students' cumulative grade point average and their results in the Doctor of Pharmacy programme in Saudi Arabia

Background: The colleges of pharmacy in Saudi Arabia share a set of unified programme learning outcomes for their Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) programmes. Based on this, a unified progress test for pharmacy students has been implemented over the past five years. The aim of this study is to correlate the students' results in the test to their cumulative grade point average (cGPA). Methods: The progress test is usually composed of 100 multiple choice questions, 30 of which cover basic pharmaceutical sciences and 70 cover pharmacy practice. The questions were selected from a question bank for this purpose prepared by the participating colleges. The test was administered online to all undergraduate students in the professional programmes of the participating colleges. Results: The attendance percentage was approximately 72% of the total number of students enrolled in 16 participating colleges. The results indicated positive correlation between the students' results in the test and their cGPA, however, there was some negative correlation, especially in the first professional levels of some programmes. Conclusion: The results showed an overall good and reasonable correlation mainly for professional third and fourth year students. It was difficult to draw conclusions about the strength of the test in assessing the programme learning outcomes.