Pharmacy student use of ChatGPT: A survey of students at a U.S. School of Pharmacy
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: To learn how students in an accredited PharmD program in the United States are using ChatGPT for personal, academic, and clinical reasons, and whether students think ChatGPT training should be incorporated into their program's curriculum. METHODS: In August 2023, an 18-item survey was developed, pilot tested, and sent to all students who were enrolled during the Spring 2023 semester in the entry-level PharmD program at the University of Colorado. E-mail addresses were separated from survey responses to maintain anonymity. Responses were described using descriptive statistics. RESULTS: 206 pharmacy students responded to the survey for a 49% response rate. Nearly one-half (48.5%) indicated they had used ChatGPT for personal reasons; 30.2% had used it for academic reasons; and 7.5% had used it for clinical reasons. The most common personal use for ChatGPT was answering questions and looking-up information (67.0%). The top academic reason for using ChatGPT was summarizing information or a body of text (42.6%), while the top clinical reason was simplifying a complex topic (53.3%). Most respondents (61.8%) indicated they would be interested in learning about how ChatGPT could help them in pharmacy school, and 28.1% thought ChatGPT training should be incorporated into their pharmacy curriculum. CONCLUSION: At the time of the survey, ChatGPT was being used by approximately one-half of our pharmacy student respondents for personal, academic, or clinical reasons. Overall, many students indicated they want to learn how to use ChatGPT to help them with their education and think ChatGPT training should be integrated into their curriculum.
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Although the number of respondents exceeded the required sample size, the response rate was lower compared with similar studies, which may limit the generalizability of the findings.
“First, although the number of respondents exceeded the required sample size, the response rate was lower compared with similar studies [19, 21, 22, 24, 25, 29, 31, 34, 37, 40, 62], which may limit the generalizability of the findings.”
AI technologies could serve as complementary tools to support, rather than replace, human expertise.
“This suggests that AI technologies could serve as complementary tools to support, rather than replace, human expertise [32, 40].”
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- Authors
- Anderson, H. D., Kwon, S., Linnebur, L. A., Valdez, C. A., & Linnebur, S. A.
- Affiliations
- University of Colorado Anschutz (US)
- University of Colorado System (US)
- Corresponding author
- Anderson, Heather D.
- Venue
- Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2024-11
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 102156
- ISSN
- 1877-1297 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4400764158
- Semantic Scholar
- 0d00c01cf9cff7c5e6fae28019ef3b5970b156fe
- Cited by
- 28
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 20
- FWCI
- 2.60
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Currents in Pharmacy Teaching and Learning (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Health Informatics › Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare and Education
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Artificial Intelligence in Education
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Innovations in Medical Education
- Keywords
- ChatGPT, pharmacy students, large language models, student technology use, generative AI training, academic use of AI
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Colorado, Curriculum, Education, Pharmacy, Female, Humans, Male, Surveys and Questionnaires, Schools, Pharmacy, Students, Pharmacy, United States
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