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Biomedical subjects

B F Richards

Publications and source records attributed to B F Richards.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1995

Development of a measure of medical faculty attitudes toward clinical evaluation of students.

PURPOSE: This research involved the development, and in particular the evaluation of the reliability, of scales to measure medical faculty attitudes toward clinical evaluation (ACE) of medical students. The intent was to create measures that yield reliable data and have practical utility in medical education research and faculty development. METHOD: A systematic, eight-step scale development protocol was used to create the instrument. In early 1993 factor analysis was used on data from 217 clinical faculty at four medical schools to refine the measures. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability analyses were performed. Analyses were also done to determine whether the attitude scores were influenced by such faculty demographic attributes as employing medical school, gender, age, tenure track status, academic rank, or academic department. RESULTS: An initial pool of 52 items was reduced to 30 items based on iterative reliability studies. Factor analysis on the 30 items yielded two scales: (1) Quality of Evaluation Procedures, 12 items, alpha = .81; and (2) Content of Departmental Evaluations, eight items, alpha = .85. Test-retest reliabilities (12 weeks) for the scales were .67 and .74, respectively. Faculty demographics did not influence attitudes about the quality of evaluation procedures. However, family physicians showed a slightly more positive attitude toward the content of departmental evaluations than did physicians in five other medical specialties. CONCLUSION: The goal of developing reliable measures of faculty attitudes toward clinical evaluation of medical students has been achieved. With baseline reliabilities established, future research should assess the validity and utility of the scales, especially in the context of clinical practice examinations.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1993

Residents' perceptions of their teachers: facilitative behaviour and the learning value of rotations.

Despite changes in modern medicine the role of the clinical teacher remains central to medical residents' education and rotations continue to be their dominant educational context. Residents have strong positive feelings for clinical teachers who are perceived as interested in teaching and for those rotations that provide a balance of educational opportunities and patient care responsibilities. Research in residency education has focused on teacher behaviours used to teach medical residents clinical information or patient care skills but has neglected teacher behaviours used to facilitate effective learning relationships with residents. To explore the impact of clinical teachers' use of facilitative behaviours on residents' educational experience, we use concepts stemming from the psychologist Carl Rogers' work previously shown to be associated with positive learning outcomes--empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence. These constructs are measured by the use of the four scales of the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory (BLRI)--level of regard, unconditionality of regard, congruence and empathy. Our study measures the correlation between residents' perceptions of clinical teachers' use of facilitative behaviours and residents' evaluation of the learning value of rotations. Thirty-three residents completed the BLRI on a different clinical teacher for each of six monthly rotations. A total of 158 surveys were returned. There were strong positive correlations between three of the BLRI variables and residents' perception of the learning value of rotations. Potential uses of these findings are discussed.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1993

A comparison between students in problem-based and traditional curricula at the same medical school: preparing for the NBME Part I.

Eighteen of 22 students in a problem-based curriculum and 62 of 79 students in a traditional curriculum at the same medical school completed a survey 10 weeks after completing Part I of the National Boards. The survey asked students to report the average time they had spent each week during the first 2 years of medical school preparing for the Part I examination. Students were also asked to rate the usefulness of a variety of learning resources. The purpose of the survey was to compare the preparation activities of students in the two curricula. The results of the survey revealed that students in the problem-based curriculum tended to study many more hours for Part I than did students in the traditional curriculum, especially during their second year. The results also found problem-based curriculum students tended to rate textbooks and the PreTest Series as more valuable than did their peers in the traditional curriculum. The effects of the format and goals of the two curricula on the students' preparation activities are explored.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1992

The consistency of students' self-assessments in short-essay subject matter examinations.

This longitudinal study compares the accuracy of self-assessments of 22 students across four examinations during their first 2 years of medical school. The four examinations used a similar short-essay format and covered many of the same basic science disciplines at similar levels of difficulty. Immediately after answering an average of 20 questions on each examination, students predicted their performance on those questions. After assigned subject matter experts had scored the questions, the differences between students' predictions and the experts' scores were calculated for each question. The degree to which students had over- and underestimated their performance across all questions was determined by separately averaging all positive and negative differences between students' and experts' assessments on each examination. The results of the study indicated that accuracy in self-assessment improved from examination 1 to examination 3 (with less overestimation) and dropped on examination 4 (with more underestimation). The results revealed no relationship between self-assessment estimations and actual scores received. Furthermore, the self-assessment estimations tended to be statistically correlated between contiguous examinations (i.e., examinations 1 and 2, 2 and 3, etc.) but not between non-contiguous ones (i.e., examinations 1 and 3, etc.). The results of the study are interpreted to suggest that the students in the study have a self-assessment tendency towards over- or underestimation that is somewhat stable but that gradually evolves over time with experience, maturity and self-assessment practice. The most frequent direction of change is towards decreased overestimation and increased underestimation. These results are consistent with the findings of other recent longitudinal self-assessment studies.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1989

Scoring the objective structured clinical examination using a microcomputer.

The objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) is being used increasingly to assess students' clinical competence in a variety of controlled settings. The OSCE consists of multiple stations composed of a variety of clinically relevant problems (e.g. examining simulated patients, diagnosing X-rays, etc.) Generally, three types of performance data are collected: answers to multiple choice or true/false questions, written short answers, and performance check-lists completed by observers. In most OSCEs these student performance measures are scored by hand. This is time-consuming, increases the probability of mistakes and reduces the amount of data available for analysis. This paper describes a method of computer scoring OSCEs with over 100 students using statistical and test-scoring software regularly used for multiple choice examinations. During the examination, students, markers and raters code answers and performance data directly on optical mark-sheets which are read into the computer using an optical mark reader. The resultant computer data can be efficiently scored and rescored, grouped into different types of subscales, weighted to reflect questions' relative importance, and easily printed in a variety of report formats.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1989

Is it worth it? A look at the costs and benefits of an OSCE for second-year medical students.

For the past two years, the Bowman Gray School of Medicine has used an Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE) to measure the performance of 117 first- and second-year medical students at the end of introductory courses on differential and physical diagnosis. Given the surprisingly high costs of conducting the OSCE ($1300 for supplies and 527 person-hours of donated time), data about the format's perceived benefits were collected. All of the faculty involved in the examination who responded to a questionnaire (80%) reported that it was worth the time they had volunteered to evaluate students by observation and that the format should be used in the future. The majority of student examinees also reported that the OSCE format was appropriate for the course and should continue to be used.

Clinical Medicine↗