Date: Tuesday, August 19, 2025
Hello, AEA365 community! Liz DiLuzio here, Lead Curator of the blog. This week is Individuals Week, which means we take a break from our themed weeks and spotlight the Hot Tips, Cool Tricks, Rad Resources and Lessons Learned from any evaluator interested in sharing. Would you like to contribute to future individuals weeks? Email me at AEA365@eval.org with an idea or a draft and we will make it happen.
Hi everyone! I’m M. Andrew Young, a PhD student in Evaluation, Statistics, and Methodology (ESM) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I currently serve as the Director of Assessment & Institutional Excellence at the ETSU Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy. Among my interests is a passion for refining assessment processes.
And I’m Chelsea Jacobs. I’m also a PhD student in the ESM program at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I’m particularly interested in how data and evidence are used to inform and improve learning environments.
Today, we’re sharing how summative logic models are being used in professional pharmacy education to evaluate program outcomes and support accreditation and quality improvement efforts.
In my context (Andrew), I sometimes use logic models at the back end—not as planning tools, but as summative evaluative maps. The goal is to trace how program inputs (faculty, tools, curriculum), activities (instruction, labs, assessments), and outputs (student assessment data) align with desired long-term outcomes, like licensure pass rates or career readiness.
This summative use helps us tell the story of what happened, identify what worked, and communicate outcomes clearly to accreditors, leadership, and faculty.
To support summative evaluation, I (Andrew) use a data governance strategy that asks:
This approach ensures our logic model isn’t just theoretical—it’s powered by real, structured evidence. Tools like Tableau/Power BI dashboards and secure data repositories help connect the dots across student performance, exam outcomes, and institutional goals.
I (Andrew) in Chelsea’s professional development (i.e., PhD mentorship) created a paired visual showing my (Andrew’s) summative logic model alongside the flow of data sources and dashboards. It helps different stakeholders, from assessment staff to administrators, understand how the program’s pieces fit together after the fact. A visual like this becomes especially useful during accreditation site visits or internal reviews.
While formative use of logic models is powerful, don’t underestimate their summative value. In pharmacy education, using logic models after the fact provides structure for evaluation narratives, supports accountability, and helps programs learn from the past to inform future design.
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