Socializing medical students in an era of managed care: The ideological significance of standardized and virtual patients

Health care practitioners come to understand their professional roles through socialization processes. This project investigates value sets that are constructed through interactions between medical students and two important socializing agents: standardized patients and virtual patients. Through in‐depth interviews with medical students and key administrators at two schools as well as an analysis of rhetorical artifacts about the formal curricula at both schools, we explored the ideological aspects of medical instruction as constituted and reinforced, perhaps subtly, covertly, and even inadvertently, through the pedagogical practices of using standardized and virtual patients. Our results highlight how these medical students perceive standardized and virtual patient interactions as an opportunity to manage uncertainty, and confront a primary tension they will face in enacting their professional rotes—being cost effective and efficient while also treating “patients as people.”     

RAN Components and Reading Development From Grade 3 to Grade 5: What Underlies Their Relationship?

We examined (a) how rapid automatized naming (RAN) components—articulation time and pause time—predict reading accuracy and reading fluency in Grades 4 and 5, and (b) what cognitive-processing skills (phonological processing, orthographic processing, or speed of processing) mediate the RAN–reading relationship. Sixty children were followed from Grade 3 to Grade 5 and were administered RAN (Letters and Digits), phonological processing, lexical and sublexical orthographic processing, speed of processing, reading accuracy, and fluency tasks. Pause time was highly correlated with reading fluency and shared more of its predictive variance with lexical orthographic processing and speed of processing than with phonological processing. Articulation time also predicted reading fluency, and its contribution was mostly independent from other cognitive-processing skills. Implications for the relationship between RAN and reading are discussed.     

Rapid Naming Components and Their Relationship With Phonological Awareness,Orthographic Knowledge,Speed of Processing,and Different Reading Outcomes

This study examines (a) how rapid automatized naming (RAN) speed components—articulation time and pause time—predict reading accuracy and reading fluency in Grades 2 and 3, and (b) how RAN components are related to measures of phonological awareness, orthographic knowledge, and speed of processing. Forty-eight children were administered RAN tasks in Grades 1, 2, and 3. Results indicated that pause time was highly correlated with both reading accuracy and reading fluency measures and shared more of its predictive variance with orthographic knowledge than with phonological awareness or speed of processing. In contrast, articulation time was only weakly correlated with the reading measures and was rather independent from any processing skill at any point of measurement.     

The extent and causes of home advantage: Some recent insights

The effect of strategy instruction on response time in a sequential keypressing task was compared during acquisition and retention. Specifically, this study determined the influence of: (1) an awareness strategy, (2) a non‐awareness strategy, (3) a Five‐Step Approach strategy and (4) a control condition. Sixty‐four subjects completed 250 trials of nine sequential keypresses, and 50 trials of a dual task (keypresses and verbal report). Faster response times were found for the Five‐Step Approach and non‐awareness strategies during both acquisition and retention. Introducing beginners to strategies that are used by highly skilled performers facilitated response times.     

The ‘worn-out athlete’: A clinical approach to chronic fatigue in athletes

Chronic fatigue in the athletic population is a common but difficult diagnostic challenge for the sports physician. While a degree of fatigue may be normal for any athlete during periods of high-volume training, the clinician must be able to differentiate between this physiological fatigue and more prolonged, severe fatigue which may be due to a pathological condition. As chronic fatigue can be the presenting symptom of many curable and harmful diseases, medical conditions which cause chronic fatigue have to be excluded. The clinician must then be able to differentiate between chronic fatigue associated with training or chronic fatigue from other medical causes, and also between the chronic fatigue syndrome and the overtraining syndrome. Once the clinician has excluded all of the above medical conditions which cause chronic fatigue in athletes, a significant proportion of fatigued athletes remain without a diagnosis. Novel data indicate that skeletal muscle disorders may play a role in the development of symptoms experienced by the athlete with chronic fatigue. The histological findings from muscle biopsies of athletes suffering from the ‘fatigued athlete myopathic syndrome’ are presented. We have designed a clinical approach to the diagnosis and work-up of the athlete presenting with chronic fatigue. The strength of this approach is that it hinges on the participation of a multidisciplinary team in the diagnosis and management of the athlete with chronic fatigue. The athlete, coach, dietician, exercise physiologist and sport psychologist all play an important role in enabling the physician to make the correct diagnosis.     

A Case Study in Asynchronous Voice Conferencing for Language Instruction

In the past decade, text-based asynchronous communication technology has been used as a teaching tool and has been researched extensively for its pedagogical implications. Thus far, the research has consistently identified two major benefits of asynchronous communication technology: (1) a deeper thought process manifested in the discussion threads and (2) the facilitation of collaborative learning. However, text-based communication is restricted to written words that may be advantageous in some subject areas but is impedimental in language instruction where oral skills are essential for communicative competency. This paper describes a pilot project in the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme at the University of Alberta where two courses incorporated a voice-based conferencing tool called Wimba. Students took part in organized debates and discussions in class and online to improve their oral skills. An evaluation survey was conducted at the end of the pilot project to test students' reactions and determine the effectiveness of the combination of Wimba and oral learning activities. There is no doubt that more research is needed to investigate the emerging field of voice-based asynchronous technology. The EAP pilot project serves as a case study at the intersection of this new technology and language instruction. Etude de cas pour une conférence orale asynchrone pour l’apprentissage des langues. Dans la dernière décennie, la technologie de communication asynchrone basée sur des textes À été utilisée comme outil

d’enseignement et a donné lieu À des recherches nombreuses sur ses implications pédagogiques. Jusqu À présent la recherche a identifié chaque fois 2 bénéfices majeurs de la technologie de communication asynchrone. 1. un processus de pensée approfondi que se manifeste dans les fils de la discussion

2. la facilitation de l’apprentissage en coopération. Cependant, la communication basée sur les textes est limitée aux mots écrits ce qui peut etre avantageux dans certains domaines mais peut gérer l’apprentissage des langues où les compétences orales sont essentielles. Cet article décrit un projet pilote du programme »English for Academic Purposes« À l’Université d’Alberta où 2 cours ont incorporé un outil de conférence basé sur la voix appelé Wimba. Les étudiants ont pris part À des discussions et débats organisés en classe et en ligne

pour améliorer leurs compétences orales. On a procédé À une enquête d’évaluation À la fin du projet pilote pour tester les réactions des étudiants et déterminer l’efficacité de la combinaison de Wimba et des autres activités d’apprentissage oral. Sans

aucun doute il faudra davantage de recherches pour étudier le champ émergeant de la technologie asynchrone basée sur la voix. Le projet pilote EAT fournit une étude de cas utile À l’intersection de cette nouvelle technologie et de l’enseignement des

langues.     

Development of a scale to measure lifelong learning

Primary objective: to develop a scale to measure students’ disposition to engage in lifelong learning. Research design, methods and procedures: using items that reflected the components of lifelong learning, we constructed a 14‐item scale that was completed by 309 university and vocational college students, who also completed a measure of deep and surface learning. Main outcomes and results: the lifelong learning scale had reasonable reliability, and showed some differences between students in different discipline and institutions. As hypothesized, lifelong learning was positively related to the deep approach to learning and negatively to the surface approach. Conclusions: although the factors that contribute to the lifelong‐learning attributes measured here have yet to be investigated, this questionnaire can provide an overall picture of a group’s inclinations towards lifelong learning. It can help evaluate the effectiveness of educational interventions, or allow individual students to understand their learning strengths and weaknesses.     

“Activities of Older Adults” Survey: Tapping into Student Views of the Elderly

This article describes an exercise used in a life span developmental psychology course to tap into undergraduates' perceptions of activities of the elderly. Students were asked to generate items to be included in a hypothetical Activities of Older Adults survey (to be administered to people 65 years and older). Responses from 1,340 students over a 10-year period show a fairly passive and negative view of life after age 65. Suggestions for utilizing this exercise to stimulate discussions about theories of aging and age stereotypes (including ageism) are offered.     

Generational differences in online safety perceptions,knowledge, and practices

ABSTRACT

As Internet usage has proliferated in recent years so have online security threats. Internet users are increasingly susceptible to online security threats. Using a qualitative approach, this study conducted 18 focus groups to examine how three different generations perceive online safety, use coping strategies, and protect themselves online: Silent and GI generation (SGI) (born 1945 or earlier), older Baby Boomers (1946–1954), and Millennials (1977–1992). Results show that although each generation shares a variety of online safety concerns, SGIs and Boomers are more suspicious about online security, have less confidence in their abilities, are uncertain about the effectiveness of protection resources, perform fewer protection behaviors, and are more likely to rely on others’ assistance compared to the Millennial group. Our findings indicate online safety training is needed for all three generations, but especially for older adults. Tailored approaches are suggested to reach different generations.