Climbing Bloom's taxonomy pyramid: Lessons from a graduate histology course

Bloom's taxonomy was adopted to create a subject‐specific scoring tool for histology multiple‐choice questions (MCQs). This Bloom's Taxonomy Histology Tool (BTHT) was used to analyze teacher‐ and student‐generated quiz and examination questions from a graduate level histology course. Multiple‐choice questions using histological images were generally assigned a higher BTHT level than simple text questions. The type of microscopy technique (light or electron microscopy) used for these image‐based questions did not result in any significant differences in their Bloom's taxonomy scores. The BTHT levels for teacher‐generated MCQs correlated positively with higher discrimination indices and inversely with the percent of students answering these questions correctly (difficulty index), suggesting that higher‐level Bloom's taxonomy questions differentiate well between higher‐ and lower‐performing students. When examining BTHT scores for MCQs that were written by students in a Multiple‐Choice Item Development Assignment (MCIDA) there was no significant correlation between these scores and the students' ability to answer teacher‐generated MCQs. This suggests that the ability to answer histology MCQs relies on a different skill set than the aptitude to construct higher‐level Bloom's taxonomy questions. However, students significantly improved their average BTHT scores from the midterm to the final MCIDA task, which indicates that practice, experience and feedback increased their MCQ writing proficiency. Anat Sci Educ 10: 456–464. © 2017 American Association of Anatomists.     

Effects of the use of interactive E-books by intensive care unit patients' family members: Anxiety,learning performances and perceptions

In an intensive care unit (ICU), patients' families play a very important role; however, they often lack medical knowledge and are extremely anxious, which could affect their ability to take care of the patients. The effects of giving conventional paper-based instruction are limited in terms of improving patients' families' understanding of the facilities and the rules in the ICU and in reducing their anxiety. Therefore, in this study, an interactive e-book was developed to present the nursing education content to ICU patients' family members. An experiment was conducted to compare the learning performances and perceptions of the patients' family members learning with the interactive e-book and those who learned with the conventional approach. The research results showed that the nursing e-book significantly improved the learning performances of the ICU patients' family members, although their anxiety was not immediately reduced. Moreover, the family members perceived that the e-book was useful and easy to use, and generally showed high satisfaction with its use. This reveals the potential of using interactive e-books to improve the quality of nursing service in hospitals.     

Enhanced discrimination of normal oocytes using optically induced pulling-up dielectrophoretic force

We present a method to discriminate normal oocytes in an optoelectrofluidic platform based on the optically induced positive dielectrophoresis (DEP) for in vitro fertilization. By combining the gravity with a pulling-up DEP force that is induced by dynamic image projected from a liquid crystal display, the discrimination performance could be enhanced due to the reduction in friction force acting on the oocytes that are relatively large and heavy cells being affected by the gravity field. The voltage condition of 10 V bias at 1 MHz was applied for moving normal oocytes. The increased difference of moving velocity between normal and starved abnormal oocytes allows us to discriminate the normal ones spontaneously under the moving image pattern. This approach can be useful to develop an automatic and interactive selection tool of fertilizable oocytes.     

香港细辛属一新种

 One new species of the genus Asarum (Aristolochiaceae) is described fr-om Hongkong, i.e. Asarum hongkongense S. M. Hwang et T. P. Wong Siu.     

Review of research on mobile-assisted language learning in familiar,authentic environments

Familiarity with learning contexts is important in the field of mobile-assisted language learning (MALL). Several review studies on MALL have been published to date. However, scholars have not covered certain aspects of familiar contexts in their reviews, such as which learning/instructional methodologies support learning in familiar contexts or what the affordances of familiar contexts are for language learning. To address this gap, the authors in this study reviewed research articles related to MALL in familiar, authentic environments published in the past 10 years. The reviewed articles were from journals published in the Social Science Citation Index between 2009 and 2018. The main aim of this study was to review the published articles to understand (1) pedagogical approaches, (2) data collection, (3) locations, (4) affordances of authentic environments and (5) issues in MALL research. The results revealed that the most frequent items in reviewed articles were task-based learning and communicative language teaching (pedagogical approaches); questionnaires, pretest and posttests and interviews (data collection); the local community and campus (locations); daily encounters, language learning and cognitive load (affordances of authentic environments); and small sample sizes and short-term interventions (issues in MALL research). Based on the results, the authors in this study made several suggestions and provided implications for educators and researchers in the field about MALL in familiar, authentic environments.