Veterinary High-Stakes Immersive Simulation Training With Repeat Practice Following Structured Debriefing Improves Students' Ability to Cope With High-Pressure Situations.

INTRODUCTION: Immersive simulation is used increasingly in medical education, and there is increasing awareness of the impact of simulation scenarios on emotional state and cognitive load and how these impact learning.1 There is growing awareness of the requirement to equip veterinarians with skills for managing high-pressure environments and provide training on human factors. METHODS: Veterinary students participated in a high-fidelity immersive simulation of a road traffic collision involving multiple casualties. The students took part in the same simulation twice, the second time after a debrief. Each participant's emotional state and cognitive load were assessed after participating in each simulation. Each participant was asked to score the effect of pressure on their performance. RESULTS: One hundred twenty-five students participated and demonstrated a higher cognitive load with more positive emotional states during the second scenario after the completion of a structured debrief and discussion focusing on pressure relief techniques (cognitive load - ¯µ Scenario run 1 = 4.44 ± 1.85 [SD], ¯µ Scenario2 = 5.69 ± 1.74 [SD]). Most (63%) participants described being in a low-performance state of frazzle during the first scenario compared with most (61%) who described being in a high-performance state of flow during the second. CONCLUSION: Immersive simulation scenarios, with structured debriefing, may allow the measurement of emotional state and cognitive load in participants. Furthermore, this study suggests that curriculum training in human factors and pressure relief techniques, coupled with immersive simulation and debrief, may improve future performance in high-stakes and high-pressure scenarios.

The health of working dogs in conservation in Africa.

Introduction: Dogs are increasingly being employed for conservation purposes worldwide. In Africa, they work in challenging environments with unique health risks which have not been investigated until now. Methods: To understand the health challenges faced by the dogs, semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants from 14 organisations that used working dogs in their conservation programmes. The data was qualitatively analysed by thematic analysis. Results: Five themes were generated. Three affective themes influenced how participants responded to the challenges associated with having a successful conservation dog programme. A strong handler-dog attachment, proficient handler training, and the acknowledgement of the challenging environment were pivotal to maintaining dog health. Two themes related to the difficulties in managing these programmes and how veterinary support interacts with the management choices being made. Discussion: To have healthy conservation dogs, current and future programmes should focus on fostering the handler-dog relationship and provide continuous handler training. The management of conservation dogs' health should adopt an evidence-based approach. Future research should focus on areas where the evidence base is lacking, particularly in the areas of prevention and treatment of African canine trypanosomiasis. Programmes should develop a good working relationship with a veterinarian that has access to evidence-based veterinary medical information.

Evaluation of veterinary students' confidence and competence with surgical entrustable professional activities after repeated use of low-fidelity training models.

BACKGROUND: This study aimed to evaluate whether low-fidelity surgical training models increased veterinary students' surgical confidence and competence and decreased procedural stress related to core surgical entrustable professional activities (EPAs). METHODS: Final-year veterinary students repeatedly performed one of three surgical EPAs on a low-fidelity surgical training model (canine castration, subcutaneous lump removal and eyelid laceration repair) and completed a survey at set time points. In addition, a grading rubric was used to assess participants' competence in performing the assigned EPA at two different time points. Survey results and competency gradings were compiled and analysed. RESULTS: Students' self-assessed confidence significantly increased, and stress significantly decreased, between assessment points on all three EPA surgical training models. Graded competence significantly improved between the assessment points on all training models, and most students deemed the models to be realistic and helpful for student practices. LIMITATIONS: Limitations relate to the study involving a single cohort from a single institute and the reliance on student self-assessment. CONCLUSIONS: Repeated exposure to low-fidelity surgical training models increased final-year students' surgical confidence and competence and reduced procedural stress related to three key surgical EPAs. Assessment of competence using a grading rubric was successful and could be incorporated into a competence-based veterinary education assessment framework to allow screening of competence prior to graduation.

Perceptions of barriers to providing good cat care in Malaysian clinical practices.

Many veterinary practices around the world do not meet basic post-operative cat care, thereby compromising cat welfare. Understanding why the appropriate care is not always given is important. The current study used a mixed methods approach of two phases, to investigate the barriers Malaysian veterinarians face in seeking to provide good cat care in practice. Phase 1 involved a survey consisting of 14 questions which were divided into three sections (demographic details, basic management and barriers experienced by practices) and emailed to 143 Malaysian veterinarians. While for phase 2, 20 interviews were undertaken (recruited from the survey sample) to further elaborate on the results. A Thematic Analysis was conducted to extract the main barriers experienced by participants. A total of 49 veterinarians completed the survey. Over half of the respondents were senior veterinarians (i.e. those with two or more years in practice) (53.1%; n = 26) who were aware of the basic environmental provisions that cats need post-surgery such as bedding and toileting facilities (57.1%; n = 28). Cost (47%; n = 23) was the biggest restriction to good care provision. Interview findings showed that participants were aware of comfortable post-surgery environments helping recovery, but barriers were highlighted: workload factors and a lack of understanding of cat pain behaviours and associated stress. This suggested that participants had the knowledge required to provide good cat care but experienced difficulties putting this into practice. Therefore, to improve cat welfare in veterinary practice, instead of focusing purely on education, interventions to increase good cat care could include targeted elements that support behaviour change to overcome the barriers.

Veterinary students' views on surgical entrustable professional activities and the impact of COVID-19 on clinical competence development.

BACKGROUND: The primary purpose of this study was to understand veterinary students' views on the described key surgical entrustable professional activities (EPAs) and to understand how COVID-19 restrictions have impacted their clinical skill and competence development. METHODS: Final-year veterinary students at a single institute completed a web-based survey distributed by email. The survey aimed to characterise five constructs regarding EPAs, and a specific five-point Likert-like scale was created asking explicitly worded questions for each construct. RESULTS: One hundred and ten students responded. The cohort agreed that the previously described key surgical EPAs were clinically important and relevant, but over 50% of the respondents felt that they had no substantial experience with them and were not confident or comfortable performing them. Additionally, most students (95%) felt their clinical development was negatively impacted by COVID-19. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study show that the key EPAs proposed are considered important skills by the undergraduate cohort described and that experience levels when entering the final year are lacking, potentially due to reduced exposure to clinical cases influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The VetEd Conference: Evolution of an Educational Community of Practice.

The VetEd conference was developed with the aim of growing an educational community by providing an opportunity to share ideas, innovations, research, and best practices in veterinary education in a friendly, affordable, and inclusive environment. The annual conference has been hosted by the veterinary schools in the UK, Ireland, and the Netherlands, becoming the official conference of the Veterinary Schools Council in 2017. The current study investigates the extent to which the development of the conference has contributed to the evolution of a community of practice. The conference proceedings' abstracts were analyzed to identify trends in number, type, and author information. This was complemented by oral histories exploring the impact of VetEd on developing the veterinary education community. The number of abstracts has increased from 40 (2010) to 137 (2018), and these are predominantly posters, with the major themes being technology-enhanced learning, clinical skills, and assessment. The authors have been increasingly international, representing 8 countries in 2010 and 22 in 2018. Nine interviews were undertaken with those involved in organizing VetEd. The inclusivity of the conference and the engagement of a wide variety of delegate groups are key themes that emerged. Concerns emerged around the organizational challenges and the potential for the conference to outgrow the founding principles in the future. VetEd has become a key event in the annual calendar and represents an initiative that has contributed to the ongoing development of the veterinary education community.

Lights, camera, active! appreciation of active learning predicts positive attitudes towards lecture capture.

Much has been written about instructor attitudes towards lecture capture, particularly concerning political issues such as opt-out policies and the use of recordings by management. Additionally, the pedagogical concerns of lecturers have been extensively described and focus on the belief that recording lectures will impact on attendance and will reduce interactivity and active learning activities in lectures. However, little work has looked at the relationship between attitudes towards lecture capture and broader conceptions of learning and teaching. In this pre-registered study, we administered the Conceptions of Learning and Teaching scale and a novel lecture capture attitude scale to 159 higher education teachers. We found that appreciation of active learning predicted more positive attitudes towards lecture recordings as an educational support tool, whilst higher teacher-centred scores predicted greater concern about the negative educational impact of recordings. The effects observed were small; however, they are strong evidence against the view that it is instructors who value participatory and active learning that are opposed to lecture capture. Exploratory analyses also suggested that those who did not view recordings as an essential educational resource record fewer of their lectures, highlighting the real-world impact that attitudes can have, and further strengthening the need for staff to be provided with evidence-based guidance upon which to base their teaching practice. Data, analysis code, and the pre-registration are available athttps://osf.io/uzs3t/.

The Use of Lecture Recordings as Study Aids in a Professional Degree Program.

Lecture recording is now common in many educational institutions, leading to discussion about how best to support student learning. In this mixed methods study, we used a survey (n = 46 participants), think-aloud methodologies in observed study sessions (n = 8 participants) and recording analytics (n = 637 recordings) to characterize how veterinary students utilize recordings during their studies. Only 48% of survey respondents considered they were more likely to use recordings as exams approached, but 78% considered they used recordings more when the topic was difficult. In the observed study sessions, students characterized their use of recordings as helping them to control their learning environment, allowing them to pause and rewind challenging topics, and as a jumping off point for future study, allowing them to structure the seeking out of additional information. In a linear model describing the recording analytics, students who had entered higher education directly from high school were more likely to watch more of a lecture than graduate entry students. In addition, the most visited lectures were also the ones with more view time (F(5, 631) = 129.5, R2 = 0.50, p < .001). Overall, this study suggests that veterinary students were selective about their use of recordings in their study strategies, often using them to make up for deficits in their knowledge and understanding, or to supplement their experience at veterinary school. We discuss the consequences and implications for student study skills support.

Development and Evaluation of a Faculty-Based Accredited Continuing Professional Development Route for Teaching and Learning.

This article characterizes and evaluates the development of an accredited, in-house, faculty-based teaching recognition scheme aimed at supporting clinicians and academics to achieve Advance HE Fellowship recognition. The scheme takes 6 to 24 months to complete and forms part of an institution-wide scheme. The evaluation covered 44 months, collecting data on participation rates across the school and 21 semi-structured interviews across 16 staff participants. We describe the outcomes measured alongside key perceived benefits and challenges to support the implementation of similar schemes elsewhere. Across 130 academic staff, there was 61% engagement. In interviews, 11 participants characterized benefits in terms of changes to their teaching, such as adopting new strategies for differing class sizes, and highlighted the benefit of accessible and context-specific development opportunities designed specifically for STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) practitioners and clinicians. Motivations for participating were mainly intrinsic (69%), with international professional recognition also featured (61%, n = 10). Of the 23 participants who withdrew, the largest subgroup (39%) withdrew because they had left the institution, and 35% withdrew because of a lack of time, which encompassed a range of issues. We outline recommendations for implementing similar schemes including protected time, accessible development opportunities, and support for mentors.

Developing Miller's Pyramid to Support Students' Assessment Literacy.

Assessment literacy is increasingly recognized as an important concept to consider when developing assessment strategies for courses and programs. Assessment literacy approaches support students in their understanding of assessment expectations and help them both understand and optimize their performance in assessment. In this teaching tip, a model for assessment literacy that builds on the well-known Miller's Pyramid model for assessment in clinical disciplines is proposed and contextualized. The model progresses thinking from assessment methods themselves to consideration of the activities that need to be built into curricula to ensure that assessment literacy is addressed at each level of the pyramid. The teaching tip provides specific examples at each of the levels. Finally, the relevance of this work to overall curriculum design is emphasized.

Ten simple rules for supporting a temporary online pivot in higher education.

As continued COVID-19 disruption looks likely across the world, perhaps until 2021, contingency plans are evolving in case of further disruption in the 2020-2021 academic year. This includes delivering face-to-face programs fully online for at least part of the upcoming academic year for new and continuing cohorts. This temporary pivot will necessitate distance teaching and learning across almost every conceivable pedagogy, from fundamental degrees to professionally accredited ones. Each institution, program, and course will have its own myriad of individualized needs; however, there is a common question that unites us all: how do we provide teaching and assessment to students in a manner that is accessible, fair, equitable, and provides the best learning whilst acknowledging the temporary nature of the pivot? No "one size fits all" solution exists, and many of the choices that need to be made will be far from simple; however, this paper provides a starting point and basic principles to facilitate discussions taking place around the globe by balancing what we know from the pedagogy of online learning with the practicalities imposed by this crisis and any future crises.

Social Media Contexts Moderate Perceptions of Animals.

The rapid rise of social media in the past decade represents a new space where animals are represented in human society, and this may influence human perceptions, for example driving desire for exotic pet keeping. In this study, 211 participants (49% female) between the ages of 18 to 44 were recruited to an online survey where they viewed mock-up pages from a social media site. All participants saw the same image of a primate but were randomly assigned to a pro exotic pet keeping or anti exotic pet keeping narrative condition. When participants were presented with the anti narrative they perceived the animal to be more stressed (χ2 = 13.99, p < 0.001). In free text comments, participants expressed reservations in the face of a narrative they disagreed with in free text comments. Overall, this study found evidence to suggest that people moderate their discussions on human-animal interactions based on the social network they are in, but these relationships are complex and require further research.

Discipline-Based Education Research for Animal Welfare Science.

Animal welfare science features interdisciplinary and collaborative working across fields, spanning behavioural ecology, psychology, veterinary sciences, economics, and fundamental biology. However, education research is not yet prevalent within the animal welfare literature. In a Web of Science topic search there were 188 papers which specifically discussed or explored how to teach animal welfare from 1978 to 2017. Of these, only 34% (n = 61) specifically focused on instructional design or pedagogical research, and these were predominantly within veterinary education (57%). Despite this, the literature is in broad agreement that animal welfare education is an important topic that should be done well. Within the UK, there were a possible 586 animal-related courses within Universities College Admissions Service database for potential students to choose from, highlighting the significance of robust and considered educational practice. The current gaps identified in the literature were discussion of hidden curriculums outside of veterinary degrees, animal-centered education, the blueprinting of assessment, and authentic assessment. Therefore, this review proposes that animal welfare scientists interested in education consider discipline based educational research (DBER) practices, and engage more fully with the educational research literature. A key component of DBER is the recognition that specialist knowledge needs to be taught by specialists, and so it is important that animal welfare scientists begin to access educational research too.

Teaching best practice in hand hygiene: student use and performance with a gamified gesture recognition system.

The use of an automated gesture recognition system to teach the commonly adopted, seven-stage hand hygiene technique to veterinary undergraduate students was evaluated. The system features moderate gamification, intended to motivate the student to use the machine repeatedly. The system records each handwash stage, and those found to be difficult are identified and reported back. The gamification element alone was not sufficient to encourage repeated use of the machine, with only 13.6 per cent of 611 eligible students interacting with the machine on one or more occasion. Overall engagement remained low (mean sessions per user: 3.5, ±0.60 confidence interval), even following recruitment of infection control ambassadors who were given a specific remit to encourage engagement with the system. Compliance monitoring was introduced to explore how students used the system. Hand hygiene performance did not improve with repeated use. There was evidence that the stages-fingers interlaced, rotation of the thumb, rotation of the fingertips and rotation of the wrists-were more challenging for students to master (p=0.0197 to p<0.0001) than the back of the hand and of the fingers. Veterinary schools wishing to use such a system should consider adopting approaches that encourage peer buy-in, and highlight the ability to practise difficult stages of the technique.

Peer-Led Academic Support for Pre-Arrival Students of the BVM&S Degree Program.

Mental health challenges are of growing concern to the veterinary community. Within veterinary education, there has been increasing focus on building resilience in students and identifying likely stressors, such as the transition into the veterinary curriculum for first-year students. In this study, we evaluated a peer-led project to provide pre-arrival materials to incoming students. Through a combination of learner analytics and post-course surveys, we investigated usage of resources and the effects on student's attitudes toward the veterinary curriculum. Over the 2 years the course has been running, 159 students (64% of total) have visited the course, but only 39% (n = 98) have actively engaged with the materials. The course was most frequently accessed from Friday to Sunday (53% of visits), and over 50% of the visits occurred 1 week before arrival. The post-course questionnaire in the first year of the course's delivery had a 17% response rate (n = 24) and most students (71%) reflected on feeling anxious about beginning their studies. 88% said they felt they had benefited from the material's availability. While not all students used the resources, providing peer-led teaching opportunities at high-stress points is an effective method of easing transitions.

Massive Open Online Courses as a Tool for Global Animal Welfare Education.

Animal Behaviour and Welfare was a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) hosted on Coursera as a free introductory animal welfare course. Through interrogating Coursera data and pre-/post-course student experience surveys, we investigated student retention, student experience, changes in attitudes, and changes in knowledge. The course ran for 5 weeks, and 33,501 students signed up, of which 16.4% (n=5,501) received a Certificate of Achievement, indicating they had completed all assessments within the course. This retention rate is above the industry standard of 10%; however, the value of retention rate as a metric to judge MOOC success is questionable. Instead, we focus on demographics, with Coursera data estimating that 41% of learners came from Europe, 35% from North America, 11% from Asia, 6% from Oceania, 5% from South America, and 2% from Africa. Most learners had completed an undergraduate degree. Despite this wide range of backgrounds, 57.2% of post-course respondents (n=2,399) strongly agreed that the information presented was at the right level and 64.9% strongly agreed that the course was interesting. After completion, more students (χ(2)[4]=132.40, p<.001) understood that animal welfare was based on the results of scientific study, and significantly fewer students (χ(2)[4]=361.32, p<.001) felt health was the most important part of animal welfare. Overall, learners agreed the course was enjoyable and informative, and 97.9% felt the course was a valuable use of their time. We conclude that MOOCs are an appropriate vehicle for providing animal welfare learning to a wide audience, but require a significant level of investment.

Consistent Individual Behavioral Variation: The Difference between Temperament, Personality and Behavioral Syndromes.

Ethologists use a variety of terminology such as "personality", "temperament" and "behavioral syndromes" almost interchangeably to discuss the phenomenon of individuals within a population of animals consistently varying from one another in their behavioral responses to stimuli. This interchangeable usage of terminology has contributed to confusion within the field of animal behavior and limits the study of the phenomenon. Here we use a rapid, non-exhaustive and repeatable search strategy literature review to investigate where there were unique distinctions between these three terms and where there was an overlap in their usage. We identified three main areas of confusion in terminology: historical usage which is not updated; a lack of precision between different fields of study; and a lack of precision between different levels of variation. We propose a framework with which to understand and define the terms based on the levels of variation ethologists are interested in. Consistent individual animal behavioral variation relates to the different structures of variation of between-individual/between-population and between and across contexts. By formalizing this framework we provide clarity between the three terms which can be easily defined and understood.