Placement Course Research Articles

Nursing students’ clinical judgment skills in simulation and clinical placement: a comparison of student self-assessment and evaluator assessment

BackgroundClinical judgment is an important and desirable learning outcome in nursing education. Students must be able to self-assess their clinical judgment in both the simulation and clinical settings to identify knowledge gaps and further improve and develop their skills. Further investigation is needed to determine the optimal conditions for and reliability of this self-assessment.AimsThis study aimed to compare the same group of students’ self-assessment of clinical judgment with an evaluator’s assessment in both simulation and clinical settings. The study further aimed to investigate whether the Dunning-Kruger effect is present in nursing students’ self-assessment of clinical judgment.MethodsThe study applied a quantitative comparative design. It was conducted in two learning settings: an academic simulation-based education course, and a clinical placement course in an acute care hospital. The sample consisted of 23 nursing students. The Lasater Clinical Judgment Rubric was used to collect data. The scores were compared using a t-test, intraclass correlation coefficient, Pearson’s correlation coefficient, and Bland-Altman plots. The Dunning-Kruger effect was investigated using linear regression analysis and a scatter plot.ResultsThe results showed an inconsistency between student self-assessment and evaluator assessment of clinical judgment in both simulation-based education and clinical placement. Students overestimated their clinical judgment when compared to the more experienced evaluator’s assessment. Differences between students’ scores and the evaluator’s scores were larger when the evaluator’s scores were low, indicating the presence of the Dunning-Kruger effect.ConclusionIt is vital to acknowledge that student self-assessment alone may not be a reliable predictor of a student’s clinical judgment. Students who had a lower level of clinical judgment were likely to be less aware that this was the case. For future practice and research, we recommend a combination of student self-assessment and evaluator assessment to provide a more realistic view of students’ clinical judgment skills.

Advanced placement course credit and undergraduate student success in gateway science courses

AbstractApproximately 2 million students take Advanced Placement (AP) examinations annually. However, departmental policies that allow students to replace introductory courses with AP credit greatly vary within and across universities, even across relatively similar universities. This study examines the impact of AP credit policies on second‐course success in introductory Biology, Chemistry, and Physics course sequences at six large public research universities (N = 48,230 students). Applying logistic regression analyses, we found that general performance indicators and measures of systemic inequities during high school were predictive of students earning skip‐eligible scores. Interestingly, we descriptively discovered wide variation across institutions and disciplines in the percentage of students who chose to skip when meeting their local policies. However, logistic regression analysis did not find general trends of inequalities for skipping courses for students with skip‐eligible scores. We then applied inverse‐probability weights with regression adjustment to examine the effects of course skipping. We found that students who skipped their first course with AP credit actually performed similarly well or better in subsequent courses than did students who did not skip, even in contexts where lower AP scores were accepted. Therefore, our study suggests administrators to increase coherence in AP credit policies across departments and disciplines. In particular, we encourage modifying AP credit policies and academic advising to encourage students to skip when they have eligible AP scores. Benefits may include reductions in unnecessary coursework that is burdensome for both students and universities, potentially freeing up resources to better support students who were not privileged to enroll in AP courses during their high school education.

Closing the Curriculum Gap by Updating Content Standards and Guidelines for Teaching Monetary Policy

The topic of the Federal Reserve’s (the Fed’s) implementation of monetary policy has a significant presence in economics teaching resources. Over the past decade or so, the Fed has purposefully shifted the way it implements monetary policy, introducing a new methodology with new policy tools. Unfortunately, many teaching materials are out of date with the Fed’s current ample-reserves regime and classroom teachers are often guided to teach old content. This guidance often comes from the Voluntary National Content Standards (VNCS) in Economics and the Advanced Placement (AP) Course and Exam Description that are sadly outdated. The VNCS influences the treatment of economics content in K-12 curriculum and textbooks, and the AP course framework determines the content taught in thousands of high school classrooms every year. As such, revising these influential documents is instrumental for closing the curriculum gap. We provide recommendations for how these materials can be updated.

Pandemic Road Map

During the unprecedented early stages of COVID-19, few protocols were established to support overall student wellness in social work field placements. In response to the overwhelming need for a contextual framework to promote wellness and determine the next steps in mitigating health risks, faculty developed a unique solution in a dynamic situation. Rooted in the university-sponsored dimensions of wellness, BSW and MSW students developed wellness plans that were integrated into the field placement course. These plans were intended to enhance students' ability to evaluate their well-being and encourage them to plan wellness activities. The wellness plan was critical in determining a student's ability to continue their planned learning activities amidst broad systemic factors, which impacted their social work field placement experiences. Developing the wellness plan encouraged students to articulate unmet needs and provided a mechanism for faculty to offer relevant university-sponsored resources. This model provides a framework with implications for social work education. The prioritization of student wellness during field placement creates a road map for the future. Given that wellness is an essential component of social work practice, social work students must have the tools to evaluate and implement wellness strategies, which can be applied throughout the student's social work career.

Using Science Standards to guide the development of high school linguistics

As the linguistics community is pushing for more introductory classes to be taught at the high school level, it is useful to create a course framework. This framework can help provide structure for a potential Advanced Placement (AP) test and course as well as help interested teachers create successful proposals to add linguistics to their school’s course offerings. Rather than reinventing the wheel, I suggest that the existing Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) are an ideal starting point. Although not a science in the traditional secondary school sense, there is considerable overlap in methodology. Using the language of science can help those unfamiliar with linguistics see that it is the systematic study of language rather than just language learning, as well as help students transfer some of the skills and knowledge of practices that they already know from previous classes. This paper serves as an introduction to NGSS and the connections between the existing science standards and methodologies with the goal of demonstrating their usefulness for creating standards for linguistics.

Enacting assessment for learning in the induction phase of physical education teaching

In many countries, assessment for learning (AfL) is recommended in both policy and research as a concept that should be integrated into the teaching of physical education (PE) in schools. AfL is also part of physical education teacher education (PETE) programs in several countries and, consequently, something future PE teachers are expected to practice in their teaching. In a previous study ( Tolgfors et al., 2021 ), we showed how AfL was transmitted and transformed between a university course and a school placement course within Swedish PETE. In the current study, we have more closely followed three of the preservice teachers who took part in our initial study into their first year of PE teaching. The purpose of this follow-up study is thus to explore how AfL is enacted in the induction phase of PE teaching. The more specific research question is: how is AfL enacted in beginning teachers’ PE practices under the contextual conditions provided at the schools where they are employed? The data were generated through Stimulated Recall interviews and follow-up interviews via the online meeting software Zoom. The analysis was based on Braun et al.’s (2011) contextual dimensions of policy enactment and Bernstein’s (1996) pedagogic device. Our findings illustrate how AfL is generally enacted through (1) progression and (2) “rich tasks.” However, the contextual dimensions of each school provide different conditions that either support or hinder the use of AfL in PE. AfL is accordingly enacted in different ways in the induction phase of PE teaching.

The Impact of Covid-19 on First Year Undergraduate Nuclear Medicine Students' Practical Skills Training.

RATIONALE: Clinical placement is an important component of any undergraduate nuclear medicine program. For first year students, it is an introduction to clinical nuclear medicine which helps them better understand the profession as well as consolidate their learning to date. At The University of Newcastle, Australia part of the clinical placement course includes radiopharmacy laboratory sessions in a simulated environment to develop necessary skills and confidence. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, restrictions were put in place that meant that clinical placements for first year students were cancelled and time in the radiopharmacy laboratory was reduced from two hours to one hour per session. The aim of this study is to evaluate whether a clinical alternative portfolio in lieu of clinical placement was effective in increasing the students' knowledge and skills in nuclear medicine practice and if specifically developed instructional videos for preparation of the radiopharmacy laboratories compensated for the reduced time. METHODS: A paper-based survey was given to the 50 students enrolled in the first-year professional practice course. This survey containing 56 questions consisted of both open questions and closed Likert-scale questions about the changes to the radiopharmacy laboratories and the clinical alternative portfolio in two separate sections. Quantitative and qualitative analysis was performed on the resulting data. RESULTS: There was a 94% response rate to the survey. The majority of students watched the preparatory radiopharmacy videos at least once and strongly agreeing that each video adequately prepared them for the associated lab session. Just over half (51%) of the students though the reduced time in the lab was sufficient to complete the required tasks. The majority of students agreed that the modules included in the clinical alternative portfolio increased their knowledge of nuclear medicine practice. CONCLUSION: In spite of the restrictions put in place due to Covid-19, the learning outcomes of the first-year nuclear medicine professional practice course were met. The preparatory videos for the radiopharmacy laboratories and the clinical alternative portfolio was positively received and gave the students a good introduction to clinical nuclear medicine.

College Credit on the Table? Advanced Placement Course and Exam Taking

Millions of high school students who take an Advanced Placement (AP) course in one of over 30 subjects can earn college credit by performing well on the corresponding AP exam. Using data from four metro-Atlanta public school districts, we find that 15 percent of students’ AP courses do not result in an AP exam. We predict that up to 32 percent of the AP courses that do not result in an AP exam would result in a score of 3 or higher, which generally commands college credit at colleges and universities across the United States. Next, we examine disparities in AP exam-taking rates by demographics and course taking patterns. Most immediately policy relevant, we find evidence consistent with the positive impact of school district exam subsidies on AP exam-taking rates. In fact, students on free and reduced-price lunch (FRL) in the districts that provide a higher subsidy to FRL students than non-FRL students are more likely to take an AP exam than their non-FRL counterparts, after controlling for demographic and academic covariates.

Exploring the Level of Grade 7 Students' Reading Proficiency in Comparison to the Norm

Reading comprehension requires specific skills, and improving it entails the collective efforts of the school, teachers, and students. Schools use various assessments to measure students' reading skills to ensure that students are at par with their grade level. This study ascertains the reading proficiency level of 232 Grade 7 students in an international school in Cambodia. The researchers used a quantitative method, and data from the Measure of Academic Progress Test were gathered through the Rasch Unit Scale. The participants are the whole population of grade 7. Furthermore, data were analyzed through arithmetic mean and standard deviation to assess students' proficiency level and identify the goal that should be prioritized for improvement. The results reflected that the majority of the students did not achieve the norm grade level mean Rasch Unit. Moreover, from the five goals, Literary Text: Language, Craft, and Structure should be improved the most. The findings of this study suggest improving all five reading goals with Literary Text: Language, Craft, and Structure as the main priority. Consequently, the results provided significant implications to the school in developing enrichment programs tailored to address the reading goals, teachers in terms of teaching strategies and differentiation, and students preparing for their Advanced Placement course.

Australian Social Work Academics Respond to International Students in Crisis During COVID-19

This article discusses the impact of COVID-19 on a cohort of international students studying at one Australian university and the efforts made by social work academics to assist these students through a challenging and distressing time between December 2019 and July 2020. International social work students usually rely on scholarships and casual employment to support themselves while studying. Nonetheless, the Australian government made no financial provisions for international students when the COVID-19 pandemic struck leaving many students without any means of support. Students from all parts of the world attend Griffith University, located in south-east Queensland, Australia, including students from Wuhan, China, where the first known outbreak of COVID-19 was identified. Shame, anxiety, racism and concerns related to the wellbeing of families overseas were superimposed onto their own health concerns and day-to-day survival while still seeking to maintain academic progress. Material and emotional support were provided through the establishment of a food bank and the development of a case management model to address the needs of students. A COVID-19 Alternative Placement course and a field education student hub supported academic success during the health emergency. These interventions developed independently as a crisis response and were merged into a multi-pronged, coordinated approach that included collaborations with other sections of the university and the community. A School working committee was established to co-ordinate interventions to address individual student need that included crisis intervention, referrals to internal and external resources, and developing communities of support. The journey traveled by students and academics and the lessons learned from this experience are described, all of which are relevant to future health emergencies including the value of involving social work in university preparedness planning. The article concludes that intensive support can enhance resilience while supporting students’ own survival strategies, and, importantly, how such efforts can minimize, as far as possible, disruption to academic progress.

College Credit on the Table? Advanced Placement Course and Exam Taking

Millions of high school students who take an Advanced Placement (AP) course in one of over 30 subjects can earn college credit by performing well on the corresponding AP exam. Using data from four metro-Atlanta public school districts, we find that 15 percent of students' AP courses do not result in an AP exam. We predict that up to 32 percent of the AP courses that do not result in an AP exam would result in a score of 3 or higher, which generally commands college credit at colleges and universities across the United States. Next, we examine disparities in AP exam-taking rates by demographics and course taking patterns. Most immediately policy relevant, we find evidence consistent with the positive impact of school district exam subsidies on AP exam-taking rates. In fact, students on free and reduced-price lunch (FRL) in the districts that provide a higher subsidy to FRL students than non-FRL students are more likely to take an AP exam than their non-FRL counterparts, after controlling for demographic and academic covariates.

Between ideal teaching and ‘what works’: The transmission and transformation of a content area from university to school placements within physical education teacher education

The purpose of this study is to explore the recontextualisation of Assessment for Learning (AfL) as a particular content area in the transition between a university course and a school placement course within Swedish physical education teacher education (PETE). By combining Basil Bernstein’s pedagogic device and Stephen Ball’s performativity perspective, we alternately ask how AfL is constructed as a pedagogic discourse and what AfL becomes in different contexts within PETE. Nine students attending a Swedish PETE programme participated in the study. The empirical material was collected through one seminar and two group interviews at the university, as well as through nine individual interviews based on lesson observations at different school placements. Our findings highlight five recontextualising rules, which indicate that: (1) the task of integrating assessment into teaching enables the use of AfL; (2) an exclusive focus on summative assessment and grading constrains the use of AfL; (3) a lack of critical engagement with physical education teaching traditions constrains the use of AfL; (4) knowing the pupils is crucial for the use of AfL; and (5) the framing of the school placements determines how AfL can be used. As a consequence of these rules, AfL was transformed into three different fabrications: (1) AfL as ideal teaching; (2) AfL as correction of shortcomings; and (3) AfL as ‘what works’. One conclusion from this study is that increased collaboration between teacher educators and cooperating teachers in schools can help strengthen PETE’s influence on school physical education.

Changes in Clinical Course Before and After Do-Not-Resuscitate Order Placement in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Setting.

Background: The relationship between clinical course and do-not-resuscitate (DNR) status has not been well studied in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) setting. Objective: To describe the relationship between DNR order placement and clinical course. Design: Single center retrospective cohort study. Setting/Subjects: Patients, ages 0-18 years, who have died in the PICU from 2008 to 2016. Measurements: Retrospective chart review of DNR status, patient characteristics, and clinical course. We compared length of stay and number of consults/procedures/imaging studies done on patients with early DNR (>48 hours before death), late DNR (within 48 hours of death), and no DNR order placement. Results: One-hundred and sixty-one children were included. Nearly half (48%) were male with median (interquartile range) age of 3 years (0-12). One-third (58) had an underlying oncologic diagnosis. Eighteen percent (29/161) were classified as early DNR, 33% (53/161) as late DNR, and 49% (79/161) as no DNR. We found no differences in patient characteristics or risk of mortality at admission among the groups. The early DNR group showed decreased number of invasive procedures (0.68), imaging studies (1), and consults (0.21) per day when compared with the late (2, 1.53, 0.50) and no DNR groups (2.09, 1.73, 0.43). Conclusion: Our results suggest that early DNR placement in the PICU is associated with a change in clinical course centered around less invasive care. Earlier DNR placement can potentially trigger a shift in care goals that could improve the quality of life for patients and mitigate emotional and physical toll on patients and their families during the highly stressful end-of-life time period.

Measuring High School Curricular Intensity over Three Decades

This article presents a new measure of curricular intensity that is objective, parsimonious, clearly defined, replicable, and comparable over time for use by researchers interested in examining trends, causes, and outcomes of high school course taking. After proposing a reduced-form version of Adelman’s curricular intensity index comprised of number of courses completed in English and core science, highest math course completed, and whether students took at least one Advanced Placement course, I test the measure in four National Center for Education Statistics high school longitudinal studies using confirmatory factor analysis. I examine the methodological implications of the measure by conducting multigroup tests for invariance across cohorts to understand how curricular intensity changes over time and comparing the measure’s predictive validity to that of alternative measures of course taking. I then examine substantive implications of the measure through analysis of trends and inequalities in curricular intensity. The four course-taking variables combined create a strong measure of curricular intensity across cohorts that performs as well as or better than Adelman’s index in explaining variance in postsecondary outcomes and predicting postsecondary success. The measure accounts for shifts over time in the relative contribution of each course-taking variable to overall curricular intensity, facilitating more accurate comparisons across cohorts or data sets. I provide practical guidance for using the measure in other data sets, including state- and district-level data, to analyze overall trends and gaps in curricular intensity and its role in postsecondary success, and I discuss some potential uses of the measure for future research and policy.

The 2016-17 Survey of Applied Legal Education

This report presents the results of the 2016-17 Center for the Study of Applied Legal Education (CSALE) Survey of Applied Legal Education. The survey was composed of four parts – a Master Survey directed to each ABA accredited U.S. law school; Law Clinics and Field Placement Course Sub-Surveys distributed by the schools to the persons responsible for each distinct law clinic or field placement course at the school; and a Faculty Sub-Survey distributed by the schools to each person teaching in a law clinic or field placement course. Ninety-four percent of law schools and over 1,100 clinical teachers participated in the survey. The results provide valuable insight into clinical programs and law clinic and field placement courses in areas such as design, capacity, administration, funding, and pedagogy, and into the role and status of clinical legal education and educators in the legal academy. This is the fourth triennial survey, following up on surveys in 2007-08, 2010-11, and 2013-14.

Developing work placements in a discipline-oriented education

Education within higher education is often divided into discipline-oriented and professional programs. Professional programs prepare students for a specific profession and include relevant theoretical- and practical knowledge. Discipline-oriented programs emphasize theoretical knowledge and research within a specific discipline or field. Except for a career within research and higher education, discipline-oriented programs provide less obvious links to future careers. The transition from student life to working life may therefore be challenging. In this paper, we present and discuss the development and implementation of a work placement course as part of the disciplinary programs in biology at the University of Bergen. The course was developed to provide students with practical- and work- related skills and competences, inform about future careers and to foster motivation and learning. We have revised the course according to feedback from students, workplace hosts and our experience during the six semesters the course has been running. The work placement course is at the bachelor (BSc) level and consists of two main components; the work placement itself and the student’s own reporting of placement outcomes. For the placement, the students work 140 hours at a workplace as a biologist. The reporting consists of four open blog-posts, one written reflective essay and a final oral presentation. The course teachers also meet with the students and convey information on the roles of biology and biologists in today’s society through a Facebook group. Feedback from the students, hosts and course teachers point to a range of benefits from work practice courses in discipline- oriented study programs. Based on our experience, we provide guidance for developing such courses as part of discipline-oriented curricula.

Black-White Educational Inequality: Linking Disproportionality Across Multiple Educational Outcomes

We characterize the extent to which black-white gaps for multiple educational outcomes are linked across school districts in the United States. Gaps in disciplinary action, grade-level retention, classification into special education and Gifted and Talented, and Advanced Placement course taking are large in magnitude and correlated. Racial differences in family income and parent education are strikingly consistent predictors of these gaps, and districts with large gaps in one outcome are likely to have large gaps in another. Socioeconomic and segregation variables explain 1.7 to 3.5 times more variance for achievement relative to non-achievement outcomes. Systemic patterns of racial socioeconomic inequality drive inequalities across multiple educational outcomes; however, discretionary policies at local levels are more influential for non-achievement outcomes.

English for Placement Purposes: Developing a Needs Based Course for Meeting the Employment Demands of IT Industries

The instrumentality for conducting a specific needs based placement course in an engineering programme is to develop relevant employability skills of the technical students to cater to the communicative demands of the industry. This paper is concerned on understanding tertiary level students’ language and communication problems while they face job interviews. This article is treated with triangulated multiple sources and methods to analyze the learning needs of the final year Information Technology students and the target demands of the HR Managers. It is found that the technical students need to adopt relevant job related oral and written communication skills to competently perform in on-campus recruitments. With the due emphasis given on examining present and target situational needs, a specific needs based intensive communicative course is designed and developed to satisfy the learners’ learning needs and their target situational demands. It reports on how the technical students are able to satisfy the recruiters in their job interviews.

Choice to Take Advanced Placement Course(s) in Preparing Students for STEM Majors: The role of Identification with Academics and School Motivation

Choice to Take Advanced Placement Course(s) in Preparing Students for STEM Majors: The role of Identification with Academics and School Motivation

Characteristic Analysis of Curricular Activities and Research Activities of Students in a Science Academy for the Gifted during Summer Vacation: Focus on an Advanced Placement Course

Characteristic Analysis of Curricular Activities and Research Activities of Students in a Science Academy for the Gifted during Summer Vacation: Focus on an Advanced Placement Course