Perceptions of the use of intelligent information access systems in university level active learning activities among teachers of biomedical subjects.

BACKGROUND: Student participation and the use of active methodologies in classroom learning are being increasingly emphasized. The use of intelligent systems can be of great help when designing and developing these types of activities. Recently, emerging disciplines such as 'educational data mining' and 'learning analytics and knowledge' have provided clear examples of the importance of the use of artificial intelligence techniques in education. OBJECTIVE: The main objective of this study was to gather expert opinions regarding the benefits of using complementary methods that are supported by intelligent systems, specifically, by intelligent information access systems, when processing texts written in natural language and the benefits of using these methods as companion tools to the learning activities that are employed by biomedical and health sciences teachers. METHODS: Eleven teachers of degree courses who belonged to the Faculties of Biomedical Sciences (BS) and Health Sciences (HS) of a Spanish university in Madrid were individually interviewed. These interviews were conducted using a mixed methods questionnaire that included 66 predefined close-ended and open-ended questions. In our study, three intelligent information access systems (i.e., BioAnnote, CLEiM and MedCMap) were successfully used to evaluate the teacher's perceptions regarding the utility of these systems and their different methods in learning activities. RESULTS: All teachers reported using active learning methods in the classroom, most of which were computer programs that were used for initially designing and later executing learning activities. All teachers used case-based learning methods in the classroom, with a specific emphasis on case reports written in Spanish and/or English. In general, few or none of the teachers were familiar with the technical terms related to the technologies used for these activities such as "intelligent systems" or "concept/mental maps". However, they clearly realized the potential applicability of such approaches in both the preparation and the effective use of these activities in the classroom. Specifically, the themes highlighted by a greater number of teachers after analyzing the responses to the open-ended questions were the usefulness of BioAnnote system to provide reliable sources of medical information and the usefulness of the bilingual nature of CLEiM system for learning medical terminology in English. CONCLUSIONS: Three intelligent information access systems were successfully used to evaluate the teacher's perceptions regarding the utility of these systems in learning activities. The results of this study showed that integration of reliable sources of information, bilingualism and selective annotation of concepts were the most valued features by the teachers, who also considered the incorporation of these systems into learning activities to be potentially very useful. In addition, in the context of our experimental conditions, our work provides useful insights into the way to appropriately integrate this type of intelligent information access systems into learning activities, revealing key themes to consider when developing such approaches.

Análisis de la formación en metodología enfermera por las direcciones de enfermería de atención primaria / Analysis of training in nursing methodology by primary care nursing managers

El objetivo general de nuestro estudio es aportar el punto de vista, el de los gestores de enfermería, sobre la docencia de los diagnósticos enfermeros (DE) en la universidad. El diseño del estudio es observacional, descriptivo, de tipo transversal. La población diana son los profesionales enfermeros de las direcciones de enfermería de atención primaria de España, y se ha obtenido una muestra del 55,64 por ciento de la población de estudio. Como resultados, se destaca que el 89,86 por ciento de las gerencias que han participado en el estudio han desarrollado alguna estrategia para la implantación de los DE, y el proceso de atención de enfermería (PAE). El 92,6 por ciento de los profesionales de las direcciones de enfermería consideran fundamental la formación pregrado para facilitar la implantación de la metodología científica enfermera. Consideran, en el 78,1 por ciento de los casos, que el perfil de la persona que imparta la materia de DE en las escuelas universitarias de enfermería (EUE) debe tener experiencia práctica en su utilización y compaginar el trabajo asistencial y docente. La relación entre EUE y direcciones de enfermería se limita exclusivamente, en el 62,9 por ciento de los casos, a la coordinación de prácticas de los alumnos. Como conclusiones más importantes destacamos la necesidad de potenciar la cooperación entre profesores de EUE y los enfermeros de las gerencias de atención primaria y la conveniencia de que los gestores de enfermería participen en la elaboración de los programas docentes (AU)