ABSTRACT
Background and purpose: Partial knowledge is one of the main factors to be considered when dealing with the improvement of the administration of Multiple Choice Questions [MCQ] in testing. Various strategies have been proposed for this factor in the traditional testing environment. Therefore, this study proposed a Confidence Based Assessment [CBA] as a pertinent solution and aims at comparing the effect of the CBA Scoring system with that of the conventional scoring systems [with and without negative score estimation as penalty] on the students' scores and estimating their partial knowledge on clinical studies
Methods: This comparative study was conducted using a standardized clinical knowledge exam for 117 clinical students. After two-step training, both the conventional MCQ and CBA examination was given in a single session simultaneously. The exam included 100 questions and the volunteers were requested to complete a questionnaire regarding their attitude and satisfaction on their first experience of the CBA after exam. A new confidence based marking system was selected for the scoring, which was a hybrid of the UCL and MUK2010 systems. The MCQ-Assistant, SPSS and Microsoft office Excel software were used for scoring and data analysis
Results: The mean age of the volunteers was 27.3 +/- 5.47, of whom 43.6% were men and 69.2% were senior medical students. Exam reliability was 0.977. The fit line of the MCQ scores without penalty estimation was R[2]=0.9816 and Intercept=18.125 or approximately.2 deviation in the low scores. The MCQ scoring with penalty had a fit line approximately parallel to the 45-degree line but on or above it and the CBA scoring fit line was nearer to the 45-degree line, parallel to it and a little below it. These two sets of scores had a significant p value0.037. The response percentage to the CBA is higher [p value=0.0001]. The discrimination power of the MCQ and the CBA for the upper and lower 1/3 of the students was not significantly different [p value=0.34]. The students' satisfaction score was high and acceptable to the CBA system and expressed a positive perspective on this system for their examinations
Conclusions: The CBA method can increase the competencies of the MCQ exams. It was found to have a greater fairness assessment, was an effective examination, an authentic testing method, with precise estimation and higher constructs validity than the conventional MCQ exam. The CBA simulate the reflection for deeper learning among the students
ABSTRACT
The effect of screening and early diagnosis of the breast and cervix cancer on increasing the survival and life quality of patients has been proven. The awareness of the young women of screening examination for such cancers is very helpful on early diagnosis and good prognosis. This study has been carried out to determine the effect of training the female students on breast and cervix cancer screening examinations in Shiraz [medical and non-medical sciences] universities dormitory. This interventional case-control study has been done on 400 students. Simple random sampling was applied for the selection of the dormitory female students. The intervention tool was an educational pamphlet. Data was collected by a questionnaire before and after the intervention, data was analyzed by descriptive statistics, t-test and Chi-suare with confidence interval of 95%. The mean point of controls was 10.54 in pre-test and 11.50 in post-test. This was not statistically significant [P=0.12]. The mean point of cases was 8.96 in pre-test and increased to 13.96 in post-test. This was statistically significant [P<0.001]. Before and after intervention, medical students had more knowledge than others. Non-medical students had acquired much more information from the pamphlet [58.9%]. The educational effect of the pamphlet on the student's knowledge has been observed. Thus, the expansion of medical training to target groups, especially non-medical students is recommended. It is proposed that health care managers apply this simple tool to expand the community health behavior
Subject(s)
Humans , Female , Breast Neoplasms/diagnosis , Uterine Cervical Neoplasms/diagnosis , Health Promotion , Mass Screening , Case-Control Studies , Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice , Surveys and Questionnaires , Health Behavior , Universities , Women , StudentsABSTRACT
Selenium is an essential trace mineral and has a profound impact on immune function, health and productive performance. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary selenium in different levels on performance and humoral immunity in broiler chicks. Male broiler chicks [Arbor Acres, 1-d old, n=225] were randomly assigned to 3 treatment groups of 5 replicates each including 15 chicks per replicate in a completely randomized design arrangement. Chicks were offered three levels of selenium including: basal diet [no supplemental dietary selenium], diets containing selenium as recommended by NRC [0.15 mg/kg diet] and 0.3 mg/Kg diet. Birds in each pen were injected with 0.2 mL of 5% sheep red blood cell [SRBC] solution at days 21 and 35 via intrapectoral injection. Blood collection was done at 7 and 14 days later and total IgY and blood metabolites were determined. Addition of selenium to diets did not make significant difference in daily weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion ratio [FCR]. Selenium supplementation to diets resulted in significant effect on blood cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol [HDL-C] and low density lipoprotein cholesterol [LDLC-C] [p<0.05]. It had no effect on triglyceride and very low density lipoprotein cholesterol [VLDL-C]. Diets with 0.3 mg selenium increased total IgY titer and gammaglobulins 7 days after secondary injection [p<0.01]. Different levels of selenium did not make significant effect on performance and weight of spleen and bursa. These results indicated that selenium at higher levels can improve humoral immunity and blood biochemical parameters