Impact of an evidence-based medicine curriculum on medical students' attitudes and skills.

PURPOSE: This evaluation study sought to assess the impact of an evidence-based medicine (EBM) course on students' self-perception of EBM skills, determine their use of EBM skills, and measure their performance in applying EBM skills in a simulated case scenario. METHODS: Pre- and post-surveys and skills tests were developed to measure students' attitudes toward and proficiency in EBM skills. Third-year students completed the voluntary survey and skills test at the beginning and completion of a twelve-week clerkship in internal medicine (IM) co-taught by medical and library faculty. Data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test for a two-tailed test. RESULTS: A statistically significant increase was found in the students' self-assessment of skills. Students reported using the journal literature significantly more frequently during the clerkship than before, although textbooks remained their number one resource. A majority of students reported frequent use of EBM skills during the clerkship. Statistically significant improvement in student performance was also found on the posttest, although the level of improvement was more modest than that found on the post-surveys. CONCLUSION: The introduction of EBM skills to students during a clinical clerkship provides students an opportunity to practice EBM skills and reinforces the use of evidence in making patient-care decisions.     

Trial and Error: How Student Affairs Staff in Community Colleges Learn to Supervise

Supervisory skills play an important role in individual staff development and the achievement of organizational objectives. These skills are vital to professionals in community college student affairs, who support a diverse student population and a wide array of programming. This study was conducted to describe the kind of supervisory training experience student affairs professionals received. Through interviews with community college student affairs professionals, we found that many experienced a lack of formal training and acquired supervisory skills over time on the job, through trial and error, and from workshops.     

New Media

ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING PLUS: MEDIA FOR A TECHNOLOGICAL FUTURE edited by Martin Greenberger (White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1985—$45.00/29.95)

NEWSPAPERS AND NEW MEDIA by David A. Patten (White Plains, NY: Knowledge Industry Publications, 1986—$34.95/24.95)

GREAT EXPECTATIONS: A TELEVISION MANAGER'S GUIDE TO THE FUTURE by Paul Bortz, et al. (Washington, DC: National Association of Broadcasters, 1986—$40.00, paper)

VIDEO DEMOCRACY: THE VOTE-FROM-HOME REVOLUTION by Richard Hollander (Lomond Publications, P.O. Box 88, Mt. Airy, MD 21771—$14.95)

THE NEW TELEVISION TECHNOLOGIES by Lynne Schafer Gross (Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown, 1986—price not given, paper)

USING COMPUTERS: HUMAN FACTORS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS by Raymond S. Nickerson (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986—$22.50)

THE CULT OF INFORMATION: THE FOLKLORE OF COMPUTERS AND THE TRUE ART OF THINKING by Theodore Roszak (New York: Pantheon, 1986—$17.95)     

Electronic Media Production

AUDIO IN MEDIA by Stanley R. Alten (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1990—price not given, ISBN 0-534-12132-2, 644 pp.)

RADIO PRODUCTION WORKTEXT: STUDIO AND EQUIPMENT by Lynne Gross and David E. Reese (Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1990—$19.95, paper, ISBN 0-240-80045-1,146 pp.)

BROADCAST/CABLECOPYWRITING by Peter B. Orlik (Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1990—price not given, ISBN 0-205-12325-2, 746 pp.)

REWRITING NETWORK NEWS: WORDWATCHING TIPS FROM 345 TV AND RADIO SCRIPTS by Mervin Block (Chicago: Bonus Books, 1990—price not given, ISBN 0-929387-15-5, 221 pp.)

SCRIPT SUPERVISING AND FILM CONTINUITY by Pat Miller (Stoneham, MA Focal Press, 1990—$24.95, paper, ISBN 0-240-80018-4, 228 pp.)

PUBLIC RELATIONS WRITING by E. W. Brody and Dan L. Lattimore (New York: Praeger, 1990—$16.95, ISBN 0-275-92896-9, 267 pp.)

SIGHT SOUND MOTION: APPLIED MEDIA AESTHETICS by Herbert Zettl (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1990—price not given, ISBN 0-534-07952-0, 408 pp.)

THE TECHNIQUE OF TELEVISION PRODUCTION by Gerald Millerson (Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1990—price not given, paper, ISBN 0-240-51289-8, 566 pp.)

TV SCENIC DESIGN HANDBOOK by Gerald Millerson (Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1989—price not given, paper, ISBN 0-240-51285-5, 249 pp.)

THE VIDEO STUDIO by Alan Bermingham, et al. (Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1990—$18.95, paper, ISBN 0-240-51267-7,192 pp.)

ELECTRONIC POST-PRODUCTION TERMS AND CONCEPTS by Arthur Schneider (Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1990—$19.95, paper, ISBN 0-240-80006-0,152 pp.)

INTRODUCTION TO TELEVISION PRODUCTION by Ken Fielding (White Plains, NY: Longman, 1990—price notgiven, ISBN 0-8013-0313-3, 307 pp.)

CORPORATE TELEVISION: A PRODUCER'S HANDBOOK by Ray DiZazzo (Stoneham, MA: Focal Press, 1990—price not given, paper, ISBN 0-240-80023-0, 201 pp.)     

Injury rehabilitation: a qualitative follow-up study

The current qualitative follow-up study was conducted to enhance the interpretability and meaningfulness of the findings emerging from a 5-week goal-setting intervention study with injured athletes. Semistructured interviews were conducted with a sample of 9 injured athletes, 3 from each of the three intervention study groups (goal-setting, social support control, and control), and cross-case summaries were inductively derived. The study highlighted the importance of individual difference variables, and the interaction of person and situational variables, including support from coaches and club, inability to train, weight gain, slowness of progress, physiotherapist support, and the importance of long-term outcome goals. Possible mechanisms for the observed effects of the goal-setting intervention included the effects of goal-setting on self-efficacy, attributions, perceptions of control, and attention.     

Assessing adolescent mental health in war-affected societies: the significance of symptoms

OBJECTIVE: To compare the use of self-report symptom checklists with qualitative methods for assessing adolescent psychological well-being in a war-affected society. METHOD: A school-based sample of three hundred and thirty seven 13- to 15-year-olds from two communities on opposite sides of the Bosnian conflict (183 from Gorazde, 154 from Foca) completed the Hopkins Symptoms Checklist and the Harvard Trauma Questionnaire. A gender balanced sub-sample of 40 adolescents was selected on the basis of their combined checklist scores, including equal numbers of high and low scorers from each side. Over the following 6 months this sub-sample was assessed (blind to checklist scores) with qualitative methods that included narrative interviews of child and parent, and participant observation. School marks were taken as a measure of social function. RESULTS: QUALITATIVE: Some children identified as "less well" by qualitative methods denied having symptoms. Some children identified as "well" had symptoms with no pathological significance for them. The lifeline revealed that feeling "less well" could be more related to post-war circumstances than war events. QUANTITATIVE: The two symptom checklist items have shown good internal consistency and discriminant validity. However, comparison with the overall well being revealed that still in 9/40 of cases the reported presence or absence of symptoms did not correspond to the well being of the child. Items of the two questionnaires did not discriminate reliably between children identified as "well" and "less well" by other means. CONCLUSIONS: Self-report checklists may be useful as a public health measure to assess the prevalence of psychological distress in war affected areas, but they are not an adequate means of clinical screening. Checklists used in combination with other qualitative approaches make it possible to identify those in need and avoid unnecessary pathologizing.     

The Air‐gap Phenomenon in Young Children's Pictures

In Experiment 1, 221 children aged 5;l‐10;2 were asked to crayon or paint an outdoor scene. The shift from leaving an air‐gap to filling in the sky occurred at approximately 8 years of age whether crayons or paint were used. In Experiment 2 four groups of children (mean age, 6;8) who normally left an air‐gap were asked to draw a photographic slide of an outdoor scene projected onto a screen. We manipulated the amount of exposure to the slide and also the information about it given by the experimenter. More children relinquished their air‐gap response when the experimenter had drawn their attention, verbally, to the full sky. When children received this information and were able to view the slide throughout the drawing session, there was also a tendency for more of them to draw the full sky and for those who left an air‐gap to draw the sky significantly deeper.