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Biomedical subjects

J A Michael

Publications and source records attributed to J A Michael.

6 recordsLinked to original sources

The Predictions Table: a tool for assessing students' knowledge.

The Predictions Table (PT), a tool for determining students' knowledge, is described. The PT is a matrix consisting of a group of variables and a set of time periods. Students enter in the PT their qualitative predictions of the effects of a perturbation on a physiological system. The instructor or a teaching program can then evaluate the students' knowledge from these entries. An example is given from the teaching program CIRCSIM, which deals with blood pressure regulation. It shows the way that the program uses errors in the students' PT entries. CIRCSIM was evaluated and was found to have a statistically significant effect. It reduced the number of errors that students made in predicting the responses of the cardiovascular system to a perturbation. Also, students who worked in groups had significantly greater improvement than did control students. Using CIRCSIM also significantly reduces the number of relationship errors that the students make. They made even fewer errors when an instructor was present in the computer classroom while the students used CIRCSIM.

Computer-Assisted Instruction

An agenda for research on teaching of physiology.

Calls to reform American medical education have not led to marked changes in the teaching of physiology. In large measure, this is the result of ignorance about how to most effectively teach physiology, a discipline requiring mastery of a complex domain in which the ability to solve problems is essential. However, contemporary cognitive science is beginning to provide us with the needed knowledge. After reviewing some of the key findings in this area, an agenda for research on topics specifically relevant to teaching physiology is proposed.

Models, Theoretical

Oxygen microelectrode response to oxygen pressures up to 15 ATA.

Polarographic measurements of oxygen at high pressures were made at 21-22 degrees C with open-type Wood's metal microelectrodes with tip diameter about 5 mu. Although the sensitivity of the individual electrodes ranged from 3.1 x 10(-10) to 8.8 x 10(-12) amps/mm Hg of O2, the oxygen current was always a straight line function of Po2 from 21% O2 at ambient pressure (Po2 = 160 mm Hg) to 100% O2 at 200 psig (Po2 = 11,102 mm Hg). Compression to 200 psig with 100% nitrogen produced no significant change in microelectrode current, showing that the microelectrodes are insensitive to pressure alone.

Microelectrodes