Agnes E. Dodds

Comparing the academic performance of graduate- and undergraduate-entry medical students

Medical Education 2010 44: 197–204

Children of Somali refugees in Australian schools: Self-descriptions of school-related skills and needs

We examined self-descriptions of children of Somali refugee families in Australian primary schools, focusing on how children’s school-related skills and needs relate to the interpretive frames of mainstream and ethnic cultures. Three groups of Grade 5 and 6 children (Somali, Disadvantaged, Advantaged) made choices among school-related skills, and rated feelings and needs for the transition to high school. Findings indicate a general goodness of fit between emphases of the mainstream culture and Somali children’s choices (sport, maths), while reflecting some values of their ethnic interpretive frames (rejecting art, music). Gender stereotypic differences did not interact with culture. Children’s computer-based choices provide a basis for bringing together studies of development and acculturation, and for differentiating between refugee status and socio-economic disadvantage.

Working with young people: evaluation of an education resource for medical trainees.

Many health professionals report interest in consulting more effectively with young people but have unmet training needs. We set out to evaluate a teaching resource in adolescent health and medicine that was designed for Australian trainees in specialist medicine.

First-year medical students' willingness to participate in peer physical examination.

Background: There is little research on student attitudes toward participating in peer physical examination (PPE). Purpose: This study explored first-year medical students’ attitudes toward PPE and their willingness to participate in PPE before they had experience with PPE as part of their course. Methods: First-year medical students (n = 119) rated their willingness to participate in PPE for 15 body regions, with male or female peers, and when examining or being examined by others. Attitudes toward participating in PPE were also assessed. Results: Low-sensitivity examinations (e.g., hands, head) in PPE were generally accepted by male and female students. Significant variation in willingness across different body regions was, however, evident for male and female students depending on the type of examination and their examination partners gender. Students generally held positive attitudes toward participating in PPE as part of the course. Moreover, students with more positive attitudes provided higher ratings of willingness to participate in PPE for all examination types. Conclusions: Findings suggest high levels of willingness to participate in PPE for low-sensitivity examinations of the kind employed in university teaching contexts. Nonetheless, gender effects appear more complex than previously described, and for some regions of the body, there are subtle preferences for particular examination types, in particular performing examinations, rather than being examined.

The transition from knowing to doing: teaching junior doctors how to use insulin in the management of diabetes mellitus

Objective To develop and evaluate a short education programme to improve the skills and confidence of junior doctors in managing the glycaemic control of inpatients with diabetes mellitus.

Clinical assessment performance of graduate- and undergraduate-entry medical students

Background: Recent evidence suggests that graduate-entry medical students may have a marginal academic performance advantage over undergraduate entrants in a pre-clinical curriculum in both bioscience knowledge and clinical skills assessments. It is unclear whether this advantage is maintained in the clinical phase of medical training. Aim: The study aimed to compare graduate and undergraduate entrants undertaking an identical clinical curriculum on assessments undertaken during clinical training in the medical course. Methods: Clinical assessment results for four cohorts of medical students (n = 713) were compared at the beginning and at the end of clinical training for graduate and undergraduate entrants. Results: Results showed that graduate- and undergraduate-entry medical students performed similarly on clinical assessments. Female students performed consistently better than male students. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that any academic performance advantage held by graduate-entry medical students is limited to the early years of the medical course, and is not evident during clinical training in the later years of the course.

The Many Faces of Everyday Life: Some Challenges to the Psychology of Cultural Practice:

We address the issue of how cultural psychologies relate to human everyday life-worlds. Everyday life entails the extraordinary within the ordinary, and vice versa— often described as cultural practices. We present the case of an involuntary event—breaking a leg—with all its temporarily debilitating experiences. The person became involved in a series of new activities of meaning construction as a way of reorganizing her life during the recovery period. If cultural psychologies are to offer adequate explanations for emerging practices, the central role of personal agency needs to be restored into their general theoretical schemes. The cultural organization of human living includes the organizer—the person—who actively makes meanings in ever-new life contexts.

Heuristics for Planning University Study at a Distance.

A model was developed at Murdoch University, Western Australia, to describe distance students’ perceptions of their aims and plans for studying a course. The model follows Polyas Heuristic and Newell & Simons General Problem Solver of students’ plans and sub‐goals for achieving those plans. Verbal reports of four students were described using the model, and showed that students’ goals were different from those of the course academic, and that student goals influenced how they planned and organized their study. Implications for the formalization of the model for understanding student behaviour are discussed, as is educational relevance for design of external courses.

Taking OSCE examiner training on the road: reaching the masses

Background To ensure the rigour of objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) in assessing medical students, medical school educators must educate examiners with a view to standardising examiner assessment behaviour. Delivering OSCE examiner training is a necessary yet challenging part of the OSCE process. A novel approach to implementing training for current and potential OSCE examiners was trialled by delivering large-group education sessions at major teaching hospitals. Methods The ‘OSCE Roadshow’ comprised a short training session delivered in the context of teaching hospital ‘Grand Rounds’ to current and potential OSCE examiners. The training was developed to educate clinicians about OSCE processes, clarify the examiners’ role and required behaviours, and to review marking guides and mark allocation in an effort to standardise OSCE processes and encourage consistency in examiner marking behaviour. A short exercise allowed participants to practise marking a mock OSCE to investigate examiner marking behaviour after the training. Results OSCE Roadshows at four metropolitan and one rural teaching hospital were well received and well attended by 171 clinicians across six sessions. Unexpectedly, medical students also attended in large numbers (n=220). After training, participants’ average scores for the mock OSCE clustered closely around the ideal score of 28 (out of 40), and the average scores did not differ according to the levels of clinical experience. Conclusion The OSCE Roadshow demonstrated the potential of brief familiarisation training in reaching large numbers of current and potential OSCE examiners in a time and cost-effective manner to promote standardisation of OSCE processes.

Beliefs and values about intra-operative teaching and learning: a case study of surgical teachers and trainees.

Surgeons require advanced psychomotor skills, critical decision-making and teamwork skills. Much of surgical skills training involve progressive trainee participation in supervised operations where case variability, operating team interaction and environment affect learning, while surgical teachers face the key challenge of ensuring patient safety. Using a theoretical framework of situated learning including cognitive apprenticeship, we explored teachers’ and trainees’ beliefs and values about intra-operative training and reasons for any differences. A qualitative case study method was used where five teacher-trainee pairs participating in an observed teaching operation were separately interviewed about the same operation. Thematic analysis of transcribed interviews and observations was performed with iterative refinement and a reflexive approach was adopted throughout the study. We found that in all cases, teachers and trainees had shared recognition of learning about technical skills whereas they differed in three cases regarding non-technical skills such as surgical reasoning and team management. Factors contributing to teacher and trainee satisfaction with the process were successful trainee completion of operation without need for surgeon take-over, a positive learning environment and learning new things. Teaching–learning behaviours observed and discussed were modeling, coaching and scaffolding, while exploration, reflection and articulation were less common. Our study reveals differing teacher and trainee perspectives of some aspects of intra-operative training and surfaces new reasons other than amount of feedback and autonomy given. Factors contributing to different perspectives include teacher and trainee abilities, values and situational influences. Targeted teaching–learning strategies could enhance intra-operative learning.