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Results for “skill learning”

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PubMed2005

Are skills learned in nursing transferable to other careers?

OBJECTIVE: To determine the influence of skills gained in nursing on the transition to a non-nursing career. BACKGROUND: Little is known about the impact that nursing skills have on the transition to new careers or about the transferability of nursing skills to professions outside nursing. METHOD: A postal questionnaire was mailed to respondents who had left nursing. The questionnaire included demographic, nursing education and practice information, reasons for entering and leaving nursing, perceptions of the skills gained in nursing and the ease of adjustment to a new career. Data analysis included exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, Pearson product moment correlations and linear and multiple regression analysis. RESULTS: Skills learned as a nurse that were valuable in acquiring a career outside nursing formed two factors, including "management of self and others" and "knowledge and skills learned," explaining 32% of the variation. The highest educational achievement while working as a nurse, choosing nursing as a "default choice," leaving nursing because of "worklife/homelife balance" and the skills of "management of self and others" and "knowledge and skills" had a significant relationship with difficulty adjusting to a non-nursing work role and, overall, explained 28% of the variation in this difficulty adjusting. CONCLUSION: General knowledge and skills learned in nursing prove beneficial in adjusting to roles outside nursing.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1995

Examining the personal experience of student skill learning: a narrative perspective.

Examining the meaning of student skill learning from the learner's perspective is a valued but understudied topic in physical education. This paper investigated the learner's perspective as a storied experience and used narrative theory to interpret the meanings students derived from their learning experiences. Four narrative accounts were presented involving university students enrolled in a beginning level bowling class. The narratives centered on describing student goals and the conflicts and resolution of conflicts experienced by these students during skill learning. Two sources of generating meaning from experience were delineated: (a) an individual's active construction of meaning and (b) the enculturing influence of the social context. These narratives provided an opportunity for teachers and researchers to examine the realities constructed by students as a result of their learning experiences.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed2001

Characterizing the neural mechanisms of skill learning and repetition priming: evidence from mirror reading.

The changes in brain activity related to skill learning and repetition priming in a mirror-reading task were examined using functional MRI. Subjects exhibited significant learning across five training sessions and this learning generalized significantly to different spatial transformations (inverted-mirror reversed text and normal letters spelled backwards). Mirror reading, compared with reading normal text, was associated with extensive activation in occipital, temporal, parietal and frontal regions. Learning to read mirror-reversed (MR) text was associated with increased activation in left inferior temporal, striatal, left inferior prefrontal and right cerebellar regions and with decreased activity in the left hippocampus and left cerebellum. Short-term repetition priming was associated with reduced activity in many of the regions active during mirror reading and extensive item-specific practice (long-term repetition priming) resulted in a virtual elimination of activity in those regions. Short- and long-term repetition priming thus appeared to rely upon common neural mechanisms. Nearly all of the regions exhibiting significant learning-related changes also exhibited increased repetition priming effects, suggesting common neural substrates for priming and skill learning in this task. Comparison of MR items with other spatially transformed typographies showed that the learning-related changes were general to all of the spatial transformations. The results confirm the importance of striatofrontal neural networks for the acquisition of skills, and suggest that skill learning and repetition priming may have common substrates within a particular task.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Functional reorganization of the rat motor cortex following motor skill learning.

Functional reorganization of the rat motor cortex following motor skill learning. J. Neurophysiol. 80: 3321-3325, 1998. Adult rats were allocated to either a skilled or unskilled reaching condition (SRC and URC, respectively). SRC animals were trained for 10 days on a skilled reaching task while URC animals were trained on a simple bar pressing task. After training, microelectrode stimulation was used to derive high resolution maps of the forelimb and hindlimb representations within the motor cortex. In comparison with URC animals, SRC animals exhibited a significant increase in mean area of the wrist and digit representations but a decrease in elbow/shoulder representation within the caudal forelimb area. No between-group differences in areal representation were found in either the hindlimb or rostral forelimb areas. These results demonstrate that motor skill learning is associated with a reorganization of movement representations within the rodent motor cortex.

Animals↗

PubMed2005

The interaction of the explicit and the implicit in skill learning: a dual-process approach.

This article explicates the interaction between implicit and explicit processes in skill learning, in contrast to the tendency of researchers to study each type in isolation. It highlights various effects of the interaction on learning (including synergy effects). The authors argue for an integrated model of skill learning that takes into account both implicit and explicit processes. Moreover, they argue for a bottom-up approach (first learning implicit knowledge and then explicit knowledge) in the integrated model. A variety of qualitative data can be accounted for by the approach. A computational model, CLARION, is then used to simulate a range of quantitative data. The results demonstrate the plausibility of the model, which provides a new perspective on skill learning.

Cognition↗

PubMed2003

Lesions of the Basal forebrain cholinergic system impair task acquisition and abolish cortical plasticity associated with motor skill learning.

The contribution of the basal forebrain cholinergic system in mediating plasticity of cortical sensorimotor representations was examined in the context of normal learning. The effects of specific basal forebrain cholinergic lesions upon cortical reorganization associated with learning a skilled motor task were investigated, addressing, for the first time, the functional consequences of blocking cortical map plasticity. Results demonstrate that disrupting basal forebrain cholinergic function disrupts cortical map reorganization and impairs motor learning. Cholinergic lesions do not impair associative fear learning or overall sensorimotor function. These results support the hypothesis that the basal forebrain cholinergic system may be specifically implicated in forms of learning requiring plasticity of cortical representations.

Acetylcholine↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Habit and skill learning in schizophrenia: evidence of normal striatal processing with abnormal cortical input.

Different forms of nondeclarative learning involve regionally specific striatal circuits. The motor circuit (involving the putamen) has been associated with motor-skill learning and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) circuit (involving the caudate) has been associated with cognitive-habit learning. Efforts to differentiate functional striatal circuits within patient samples have been limited. Previous studies have provided mixed results regarding striatal-dependent nondeclarative learning deficits in patients with schizophrenia. In this study, a cognitive-habit learning task (probabilistic weather prediction) was used to assess the DLPFC circuit and a motor-skill learning task (pursuit rotor) was used to assess the motor circuit in 35 patients with schizophrenia and 35 normal controls. Patients with schizophrenia displayed significant performance differences from controls on both nondeclarative tasks; however, cognitive-habit learning rate in patients did not differ from controls. There were performance and learning-rate differences on the motor-skill learning task between the whole sample of patients and controls, however, analysis of a subset of patients and controls matched on general intellectual level eliminated learning rate differences between groups. The abnormal performance offset between patients with schizophrenia and controls in the absence of learning rate differences suggests that abnormal cortical processing provides altered input to normal striatal circuitry.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

From recurrent choice to skill learning: a reinforcement-learning model.

The authors propose a reinforcement-learning mechanism as a model for recurrent choice and extend it to account for skill learning. The model was inspired by recent research in neurophysiological studies of the basal ganglia and provides an integrated explanation of recurrent choice behavior and skill learning. The behavior includes effects of differential probabilities, magnitudes, variabilities, and delay of reinforcement. The model can also produce the violation of independence, preference reversals, and the goal gradient of reinforcement in maze learning. An experiment was conducted to study learning of action sequences in a multistep task. The fit of the model to the data demonstrated its ability to account for complex skill learning. The advantages of incorporating the mechanism into a larger cognitive architecture are discussed.

Animals↗

PubMed2006

Separate neural substrates for skill learning and performance in the ventral and dorsal striatum.

It is widely accepted that the striatum of the basal ganglia is a primary substrate for the learning and performance of skills. We provide evidence that two regions of the rat striatum, ventral and dorsal, play distinct roles in instrumental conditioning (skill learning), with the ventral striatum being critical for learning and the dorsal striatum being important for performance but, notably, not for learning. This implies an actor (dorsal) versus director (ventral) division of labor, which is a new variant of the widely discussed actor-critic architecture. Our results also imply that the successful performance of a skill can ultimately result in its establishment as a habit outside the basal ganglia.

2-Amino-5-phosphonovalerate↗

PubMed2002

Central mechanisms of motor skill learning.

Recent studies have shown that frontoparietal cortices and interconnecting regions in the basal ganglia and the cerebellum are related to motor skill learning. We propose that motor skill learning occurs independently and in different coordinates in two sets of loop circuits: cortex-basal ganglia and cortex-cerebellum. This architecture accounts for the seemingly diverse features of motor learning.

Animals↗

PubMed1998

Cognitive skill learning and schizophrenia: implications for cognitive remediation.

The ability to acquire a motor and cognitive skill was investigated in 26 patients with schizophrenia and 26 normal participants using repeated testing on the Tower of Toronto puzzle. Seven patients with defective performance were retested using additional trials and immediate feedback designed to facilitate problem solving. A component analysis of performance was used based on J. R. Anderson's (1987) model of cognitive skill learning. Patients exhibited a performance deficit on both motor and cognitive skills. However, their acquisition rate was similar to that of normal participants on most parameters, indicating that skill learning suffered little or no impairment. Performance deficit was accounted for by poor problem-solving ability, explicit memory, and general intellectual capacities. It was remediable in some, but not all, patients. Remediation failure was also related to severe defects of cognitive functions.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

Practice with sleep makes perfect: sleep-dependent motor skill learning.

Improvement in motor skill performance is known to continue for at least 24 hr following training, yet the relative contributions of time spent awake and asleep are unknown. Here we provide evidence that a night of sleep results in a 20% increase in motor speed without loss of accuracy, while an equivalent period of time during wake provides no significant benefit. Furthermore, a significant correlation exists between the improved performance overnight and the amount of stage 2 NREM sleep, particularly late in the night. This finding of sleep-dependent motor skill improvement may have important implications for the efficient learning of all skilled actions in humans.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2001

Aberrant brain activation following motor skill learning in schizophrenic patients as shown by functional magnetic resonance imaging.

BACKGROUND: Motor skill learning may be impaired in schizophrenia. While functional brain imaging studies have shown reduced activation during motor task performance in schizophrenic patients, brain activity changes with motor skill learning in these patients have not been studied by functional imaging. METHODS: A sequential complex motor task involving the right hand was performed by nine medicated schizophrenic patients and 10 age-matched healthy controls. Functional magnetic resonance images were obtained using a gradient echo, echoplanar imaging (EPI) pulse sequence before and after 1 week of training in performing the task. RESULTS: Bilaterally, patients showed significantly less blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal response in the premotor area (PMA) before beginning motor training than controls. BOLD signal response increased in the left PMA of schizophrenic patients after 1 week of motor training; in contrast, the signal decreased in the left PMA of control subjects. Training effects concerning the number of finger movement sequences achieved did not differ between groups. Daily neuroleptic dose did not significantly affect changes with training in BOLD signal response in the PMA. CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary results suggest that schizophrenic patients have dysfunction of neural networks in areas including the PMA that are involved in executing a complex motor task. In terms of brain activity, motor learning may be less efficient or slower in the patients than in healthy subjects.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Sleep and the time course of motor skill learning.

Growing evidence suggests that sleep plays an important role in the process of procedural learning. Most recently, sleep has been implicated in the continued development of motor-skill learning following initial acquisition. However, the temporal evolution of motor learning before and after sleep, the effects of different training regimens, and the long-term development of motor learning across multiple nights of sleep remain unknown. Here, we report data for subjects trained and retested on a sequential finger-tapping task across multiple days. The findings demonstrate firstly that following initial training, small practice-dependent improvements are possible before, but not following the large practice-independent gains that develop across a night of sleep. Secondly, doubling the quantity of initial training does not alter the amount of subsequent sleep-dependent learning that develops overnight. Thirdly, the amount of sleep-dependent learning does not correlate with the amount of practice-dependent learning achieved during training, suggesting the existence of two discrete motor-learning processes. Finally, whereas the majority of sleep-dependent motor-skill learning develops during the first night of sleep following training, additional nights of sleep still offer continued improvements.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

A questionnaire survey of students' perceptions of nurse tutor teaching in a clinical skills learning programme.

Changes in medical education and in the environments in which students learn have brought about new ways of learning in undergraduate medical curricula. Amongst these have been the establishment of courses in clinical skills learning to address concerns of deficient skills amongst newly qualified doctors. Curriculum reform at Liverpool, UK, included extensive and early learning of clinical skills. Nurse tutors provide full-time teaching support in a single Clinical Skills Resource Centre. They work alongside medically qualified tutors in delivering a clinical skills learning programme. This study aimed to explore students' opinion of nurses teaching clinical skills and to compare that to their opinion of teaching by medically qualified clinicians. A questionnaire survey was used to gain the views of 206 first-year medical students. Overall, students were strongly supportive in their opinion of nurse tutors. Some small statistically significant differences are probably of little or no educational significance. This role for nurses stresses the importance of interprofessional teachers in undergraduate healthcare education.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMed1990

Temperament, behavior problems, and learning skills in very low birth weight preschoolers.

The relationship between temperament, behavior problems, and learning skill abilities in preschool children who were born with very low birth weight (VLBW) is described. Subjects were 37 4-year-olds who weighed less than 1,500 grams at birth, were appropriate for gestational age, and free from congenital anomalies (M birth weight = 1,201 grams). Data were gathered when the children were 48 months chronological age and analyzed using point biserial and Pearson product moment correlation, chi square, and MANOVA. Temperament characteristics of rhythmicity, intensity, and persistence were related to behavior problems and learning skill abilities. Mothers reported more children with behavior problems than expected in the general population. Children with four or more behavior problems had significantly lower skill achievement scores than children with fewer behavior problems.

Child Behavior Disorders↗

PubMed2005

Undergraduate students' attitudes to communication skills learning differ depending on year of study and gender.

The authors wished to assess medical students' attitudes towards communication skills learning, and to validate the use of the Communication Skills Attitude Scale (CSAS) in a different population. This cross-sectional study of Years 1-3 MBChB students, University of Aberdeen, in 2002-03 (overall response rate=86.2%) identified significant differences in attitudes to communication skills teaching by year of study and gender. PAS (positive attitudes scores) for Year 1 were significantly higher than those for Years 2 and 3. NAS (negative attitudes scores) for Year 1 were significantly lower than the scores for Year 2 but not Year 3. The scores for Years 2 and 3 were not significantly different. Female students had a significantly higher mean PAS score and lower mean NAS score than males, and were more likely to disagree that their communication and clinical skills were competent. While cohort effects may be present, it seems that attitudes towards communication skills learning are positive initially, becoming less so until students experience interacting with patients. Differences between male and female students reflect those seen in previous studies. The findings presented support the use of the CSAS as an appropriate tool to measure attitudes in a wide population of medical students.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1994

Hidden Markov model approach to skill learning and its application to telerobotics.

In this paper, we discuss the problem of how human skill can be represented as a parametric model using a hidden Markov model (HMM), and how an HMM-based skill model can be used to learn human skill. HMM is feasible to characterize a doubly stochastic process--measurable action and immeasurable mental states--that is involved in the skill learning. We formulated the learning problem as a multidimensional HMM and developed a testbed for a variety of skill learning applications. Based on "the most likely performance" criterion, the best action sequence can be selected from all previously measured action data by modeling the skill as an HMM. The proposed method has been implemented in the teleoperation control of space station robot system, and some important implementation issues have been discussed. The method allows a robot to learn human skill in certain tasks and to improve motion performance.

Algorithms↗