Academic conference posters: Describing visual impression in pharmacy education
Open accessAbstract
Background: Academic conference posters are a key communication before journal articles. Attention to visual attributes can enhance academic poster communication. Objective: This investigation's purpose was to create a visual impression measurement instrument, and then to describe and compare visual impression among scientific posters from an academic conference. Methods: A mixed-approach rubric was created to quickly measure visual impression of academic posters. Then, posters from a pharmacy education conference were retrospectively reviewed and scored. Visual impression was compared for traditional versus contemporary poster-formats. Various poster characteristics (poster-format, summary statement presence, abstract presence, wordiness, QR-code presence, logical sequencing, visuals) that might have impacted visual communication were coded. These characteristics were regressed onto visual impression scores. Results: abstract absence, lack of wordiness, QR-code presence, logical sequencing, and number of visuals were significant when regressed. Conclusion: Posters at one academic conference had varied visual impression. While a contemporary poster-format appeared more helpful, it was not a panacea; variation from poor through exemplary was seen with both poster-formats. Posters are not text-filled articles; displaying a combination of visuals/text clearly and concisely can help effective communication with academic posters.
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Khadka et al. (2024) found that contemporary poster formats such as the better poster format appeared more helpful in engaging the audience but were not without flaws.
“Similar to our results, Khadka et al. (2024) found that while contemporary poster formats, such as the better poster format, appeared more helpful in engaging the audience, they were not without flaws.”
From What Makes a Good Poster? Evaluating #BetterPoster and Classic Formats at a Scientific Cancer Conference (2026) · cites this paper as [8]
The Results report that contemporary posters received significantly higher visual-impression scores, and the Discussion says some contemporary posters nevertheless turned out badly. The study assessed visual impression at one pharmacy education conference, not audience engagement directly, so that part of the paraphrase goes beyond its findings. (LLM, conf=0.85)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredKhadka et al. emphasized that poster quality varied significantly, from poorly executed to exemplary, regardless of format.
“Their study emphasized that the quality of posters varied significantly, ranging from poorly executed to exemplary, regardless of format [8].”
From What Makes a Good Poster? Evaluating #BetterPoster and Classic Formats at a Scientific Cancer Conference (2026) · cites this paper as [8]
The scales for organization, poster design, and wordiness were adapted from Khadka et al.
“A detailed description of the scales for the items 'organization,' 'poster design,' and 'wordiness' were defined as seen in Table 1, inspired by Khadka et al. [8].”
From What Makes a Good Poster? Evaluating #BetterPoster and Classic Formats at a Scientific Cancer Conference (2026) · cites this paper as [8]
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Research works printed but not linked: 25
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Sorted by citations
Bentsen, L., & Østergaard, D. E. (2026) · Journal of Cancer Education · doi:10.1007/s13187-025-02622-1 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
- Authors
- Khadka, S., Holt, K., & Peeters, M. J.
- Affiliations
- University of Toledo (US)
- Corresponding author
- Peeters, Michael J.
- ORCID
- Peeters, Michael J.
- Venue
- Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2024-03
- Volume
- 13
- Pages
- 100423
- ISSN
- 2667-2766 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC10899018
- OpenAlex
- W4391836570
- Cited by
- 8
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 7
- FWCI
- 9.18
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- erratum (2024-12-01)
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Academic Writing and Publishing
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Data Visualization and Analytics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Keywords
- visual impression, visual communication, pharmacy education, QR codes
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