Biomedical subjects

Marlene J Sauer

Publications and source records attributed to Marlene J Sauer.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2003

Service learning in the medical curriculum: developing and evaluating an elective experience.

BACKGROUND: Medical educators are seeking ways to nurture the service commitments of their medical students while promoting interactions with the communities they serve. Service learning is a pedagogy that links community service with academic experience. DESCRIPTION: The University of Kentucky College of Medicine has developed and implemented an experiential service learning elective. The elective is based in local community agencies where small groups of students perform an asset-needs assessment and design a service project based on their findings. The elective is linked to a behavioral science course that provides accompanying biopsychosocial instruction. EVALUATION: Over the 2-year project period, we used multiple methods (i.e., surveys, interviews, reflection questionnaires, evaluations of student performance, and course evaluations) to gather information on the motivations, observations, and assessments of students, faculty preceptors, and community agency partners. CONCLUSION: Linking a service learning elective to a pre-existing course worked well, achieved its objectives, and will be continued

Community Health Planning↗

PubMed2002

Medical students' ratings of faculty teaching in a multi-instructor setting: an examination of monotonic response patterns.

Realizing that the psychometric properties of a measure may be highly variable is especially relevant in a multi-instructor context, since an implicit assumption is that student ratings are equally reliable and valid for all faculty ratees. As a possible indicator of nonattending (i.e. invalid) responses, the authors examined the effects of monotonic response patterns on the reliabilities of students' ratings of faculty teaching - including how an alternative presentation format may reduce the prevalence of this behavior. Second-year medical and dental students (n = 130) enrolled in a required basic science course during the 1998-99 academic year were randomly assigned to one of two groups - each of which evaluated the teaching of 6 different faculty across 6 distinct dimensions (i.e. overall quality, organization, preparation, stimulation, respectfulness, and helpfulness). Using a 'split ballot' design, two versions of the conceptually equivalent faculty evaluation form were distributed at random to students in each group. Form A contained the 'traditional' items-within-faculty format, while Form B listed faculty-within-item.The number of monotonic forms (i.e. the identical rating of all 6 items) varied measurably across faculty ratees, as did the respective effects on scale reliabilities. Alpha was especially inflated where a sizeable proportion of monotonic patterns were located on response categories that were either very high (> +1.28 z(m) deviations) or very low (< -1.28 z(m) deviations) compared to the group mean. Lastly, the prevalence of monotonic response patterns was significantly (p = < or = 0.01) less when a faculty-within-item format is used (Form B). These findings suggest that monotonic response patterns differentially impact the reliabilities and, hence, the validity of students' ratings of individual faculty in a multi-instructor context.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed2002

How we implemented a service-learning elective.

This paper describes the process used to introduce a service-learning course into the medical curriculum at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. The rationale for taking the initiative to begin such a project is outlined and curriculum planning considerations are reviewed, including how to identify project team members, choose community agency partners, develop the instructional plan, and define roles and responsibilities of the participants. The importance of understanding the philosophy of service learning and taking time for reflection are underscored. Also discussed are program evaluation issues and strategies are suggested for evaluating service learning, obtaining information relevant to the continuation of the project, and disseminating information about the service learning outcomes.

Community-Institutional Relations↗