An evaluation of the effectiveness of the Injury Minimization Programme for Schools (IMPS).
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OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of an injury prevention programme (Injury Minimization Programme for Schools, IMPS) on children's primary and secondary prevention, and basic life support, knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviour. DESIGN: Prospective non-randomised matched control. SETTING: Radcliffe NHS Trust and primary and middle schools in Oxfordshire, UK. SUBJECTS: 1,200 year 6 children (10 and 11 years old); 600 received IMPS, a primary and secondary injury prevention programme taught in the school and hospital environments; 600 children in the control group received no planned intervention. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Safety knowledge, measured using a quiz. Resuscitation skills and behaviour observed and assessed using a simulated emergency scenario. Attitude and hypothetical behaviour towards safety assessed by the "draw and write" technique. RESULTS: Before intervention, both groups had similar levels of knowledge. Five months after the intervention, significantly more IMPS trained children demonstrated a greater increase in knowledge in administering first aid and the correct procedure for making a call to the emergency services. They also demonstrated better basic life support techniques-for example, mouth-to-mouth and cardiac compressions. They identified more subtle dangers, were more likely to seek help, and tell others that their behaviour was dangerous. CONCLUSION: The results demonstrate the benefits of the IMPS programme on injury prevention knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours. (+info)
Prevention of spinal cord injuries caused by diving: evaluation of the distribution and usage of a diving safety video in high schools.
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OBJECTIVE: To determine and assess the distribution and use of Sudden Impact, a video designed by Think First and SportsSmart Canada, to help prevent spinal cord injury caused by careless shallow water diving among teenagers in the high risk group (15-24 years old). DESIGN: Survey of 92 public secondary schools in Toronto, Canada. SUBJECTS: The heads of the physical and health education departments of the 92 secondary public schools in the Metropolitan Toronto region. RESULTS: The response rate was 64% (59 schools), of which 76% (45) had actually received the video. Forty one schools (91%) of those that received the video reported using it. Eighty per cent of responding schools showed it to grade 11 students. Eighty per cent of schools with swimming pools used the video compared with only 42% of schools without swimming pools. CONCLUSIONS: There is a need for improvements in the system of distribution to ensure greater use of material such as this video. These may include direct distribution to principals, continuing contact with the schools, or mandatory inclusion of diving safety into the school curriculum. (+info)
Reconceptualizing adolescent sexual behavior: beyond did they or didn't they?
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CONTEXT: Adolescent sexual behavior is typically studied as a dichotomy: Adolescents have had sex or they have not. Broadening this view would lead to a greater understanding of teenagers' sexual behavior. METHODS: Interview data from 907 high school students in Alabama, New York and Puerto Rico were used to examine the relationships between sexual experience and a variety of social, psychological and behavioral variables. Four groups of teenagers are compared: those who did not anticipate initiating sex in the next year (delayers), those who anticipated initiating sex in the next year (anticipators), those who had had one sexual partner (singles) and those who had had two or more partners (multiples). RESULTS: Compared with delayers, anticipators reported more alcohol use and marijuana use; poorer psychological health; riskier peer behaviors; and looser ties to family school and church. Similarly, multiples reported more alcohol and marijuana use, riskier peer behaviors and looser ties to family and school than singles. Risk behaviors, peer behaviors, family variables, and school and church involvement showed a linear trend across the four categories of sexual behavior. CONCLUSIONS: The traditional sex-no sex dichotomy obscures differences among sexually inexperienced teenagers and among adolescents who have had sex. Prevention efforts must be tailored to the specific needs of teenagers with differing sexual experiences and expectations, and must address the social and psychological context in which sexual experiences occur. (+info)
Exploring the context of biomedical research through a problem-based course for undergraduate students.
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Students in an interdisciplinary program explored the manufacture of biomedical knowledge in a problem-based course. Because the class size was two to three times larger than the normal tutorial group, suitable modifications were made (formation of floating groups around defined learning tasks, formal presentations, written reports, and evaluations by students and tutor). A variety of problems and/or cases drawn from research papers, newspapers, biographies, or web pages permitted students to appreciate the complex interactions between ideals, individuals, institutions, and investments that comprise modern biomedical research. (+info)
Student test scores are improved in a virtual learning environment.
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This study evaluates the effectiveness of delivering the core curriculum of an introductory neuroscience course using a software application referred to as a virtual learning interface (VLI). The performance of students in a virtual learning environment (VLE) is compared with that of students in a conventional lecture hall in which the same lecturer presented the same material. This study was not designed to determine whether grades are improved by augmenting a lecture with other information. The VLI takes advantage of audio, video, animation, and text in a multimedia computer environment. Our results indicate that raw average scores on weekly examinations were 14 percentage points higher for students in the VLE compared with those for students in a conventional lecture hall setting. Moreover, normalized test scores were over 5 points higher for students in the VLE. This analysis suggest that a core curriculum can be effectively presented to students using the VLE, thereby making it possible for faculty to spend less class time relaying facts and more time engaging students in discussion of scientific theory. (+info)
Quantitative concept mapping in pulmonary physiology: comparison of student and faculty knowledge structures.
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Quantitative concept mapping, in contrast with qualitative approaches, is rigorous scientifically and permits statistical analyses of data about concept learning. This study extends past quantitative research on the structure of student concept learning in pulmonary physiology. Pathfinder scaling is used to derive concept maps for medical and veterinary students and their physiology instructors at Northwestern University and the University of Wisconsin, respectively. The concept maps are evaluated for coherence (internal consistency), student-instructor similarity, and correlation of similarity with final examination scores. Results show that student and instructor concept maps are coherent and that student concept maps become increasingly similar to instructors' concept maps from pre- to postinstruction, but that student-instructor concept map similarity does not correlate with examination performance. Research outcomes are discussed concerning possible sources of variation in student and faculty knowledge structures. (+info)
Helping undergraduates repair faulty mental models in the student laboratory.
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Over half of the undergraduate students entering physiology hold a misconception concerning how breathing pattern changes when minute ventilation increases. Repair of this misconception was used as a measure to compare the impact of three student laboratory protocols on learning by 696 undergraduate students at 5 institutions. Students were tested for the presence of the misconception before and after performing a laboratory activity in which they measured the effect of exercise on tidal volume and breathing frequency. The first protocol followed a traditional written "observe and record" ("cookbook") format. In the second treatment group, a written protocol asked students to complete a prediction table before running the experiment ("predictor" protocol). Students in the third treatment group were given the written "predictor" protocol but were also required to verbalize their predictions before running the experiment ("instructor intervention" protocol). In each of the three groups, the number of students whose performance improved on the posttest was greater than the number of students who performed less well on the posttest (P < 0.001). Thus the laboratory protocols helped students correct the misconception. However, the remediation rate for students in the "instructor intervention" group was more than twice that observed for the other treatment groups (P < 0.001). The results indicate that laboratory instruction is more effective when students verbalize predictions from their mental models than when they only "discover" the outcome of the experiment. (+info)
Comparison of naive and experienced students of elementary physiology on performance in an advanced course.
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The purpose of this study was to determine whether, in comparison with naive students, experienced students who have completed an elementary physiology course 1) have a greater knowledge level of physiology and 2) perform better in an upper division physiology course. The educational setting for this study was the cardiovascular block of an advanced undergraduate level course entitled Principles of Human Physiology (PGY 412). The study employed students who had completed elementary physiology (PGY 206) at the University of Kentucky (group 1), students who had completed elementary physiology in another academic program (group 2), and naive students with no prior physiology experience (group 3). A cardiovascular pretest was presented during the opening session of the cardiovascular block in PGY 412. Respective scores for the three groups were 29.4%, 31.7%, and 24.1%, and there were no significant between-group differences. Respective scores on the same pretest items given as a posttest at the end of the cardiovascular block were 90.4%, 91.4%, and 90.4%, and, again, there were no significant between-group differences. Respective scores on other cardiovascular test items given at the end of the block were 78.9%, 78.7%, and 81.1%. Interestingly, the highest score here was achieved by the naive students (group 3), but, once again, between-group differences were not significant. In summary, on the basis of pretest/posttest examination of cardiovascular physiology between naive and experienced students, the results of this study indicate 1) that the common assumption that students entering advanced level physiology courses have a significant retention of knowledge from elementary physiology is not valid and 2) that completion of an elementary physiology course does not offer an advantage in learning advanced material. (+info)