Proportion Of Correct Answers Research Articles

Extinción visual: estudio mediante potenciales evocados al movimiento

The term extinction refers to the phenomenon in which a patient with a lesion of the central nervous system ignores one of two stimuli in conditions of simultaneous bilateral stimuli. Various studies observe this phenomenon as the expression of a deficit in the process of selective attention, but there are few studies with potentials related to events (PRE). To find the possible electrical correlation of the extinction phenomenon and the stage of processing at which this occurs. We studied a patient with a right parieto occipital lesion and a control person of the same race, age, sex and educational level. We carried out two experiments. The first of these was to determine the direction of movement of two surfaces with red and green spots situated on both sides of a central fixation point. In the second experiment, the same task was carried out, but the two surfaces were superimposed, in the same place. In both cases the first movement occurred in the surface which was being attended to and the second might be this surface or the other. The proportion of correct answers were recorded for both movements. The PRE showed an attention disorder which affected the spatial distribution of attention with conservation of the attention to objects. The suppression of the P1 N1 components are the electrical correlate of the phenomenon of extinction which should occur during early stages of processing. Further investigations are necessary in a larger number of cases.

How Do Adolescents Perceive Wire Floor in Fox Cages?

The wire-mesh netting used as the floor material in cages is often claimed to cause walking problems for foxes. The validity of this claim was tested in 96 15-year-old secondary school pupils. They were shown five separate 2 min fragments of videotapes showing the cage pairs with randomized floor material (solid or wire mesh) but with an obstructed view of the floor. The pupils were asked to evaluate the flooring material based on what they actually saw. The mean proportion of correct answers out of 5 for individuals were slightly more than half correct (0.54), but this did not differ significantly from the random value (0.5). When the pairs of foxes had different flooring material, the pupils answered correctly (0.58, P <0.05). Thus, the pupils were not able to identify a specific floor type (wire-mesh or solid floor) but were able to differentiate between two different types of floor based solely on the behaviour of the foxes.

Knowledge of cardiopulmonary resuscitation protocols and level of anaesthetic training.

Inadequate recall of resuscitation protocols has contributed to poor performance of resuscitation in simulation studies. We asked, does the level of anaesthesia training affect knowledge of cardiopulmonary resuscitation protocols? We used a questionnaire that covered the areas of basic life support, advanced adult life support and paediatric life support. The proportions of correct answers were hospital medical officers 50%, junior registrars 62%, senior registrars 84% and consultants 42%. The consultant group performed worse than all other groups for the basic life support and advanced life support questions. We suggest yearly resuscitation training for all anaesthetists and anaesthesia trainees.

An interactive, computer-based program to educate patients about genital herpes.

Education and counseling constitute a substantial portion of management of patients with genital herpes. Innovative methods for education about genital herpes are needed. To test the ability of an interactive, computer-based program to educate patients about genital herpes. Persons seeking care at five urban offices were asked to participate. A knowledge test about genital herpes was administered before and after participation. Participants' satisfaction was assessed with a questionnaire. Four hundred thirty-five participants enrolled, and 428 completed the herpes knowledge test. Of six questions evaluated, a statistically significant increase in the proportion of correct answers was noted on five of six questions. Fifty-one percent of participants answered all the questions correctly after the program, compared with 39% before the program. Satisfaction with the program was very high. Innovative, computer-based programs can provide education and assist in the management of chronic sexually transmitted infections.

Public Knowledge About Electroconvulsive Therapy: A Demographically Stratified Investigation

The present study measured factual knowledge about electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in a demographically stratified sample of the general public. Participants (n = 200) completed a 31-item true–false test regarding indications, procedures, and effects of ECT, rating their confidence in each answer on a 5-point Likert scale. The correlation between years of education and proportion of correct answers was significant. Proportion of correct answers and mean confidence did not differ by age or gender, but data suggest that misconceptions about ECT may be more prevalent among African-Americans than among Caucasian participants. Common misconceptions in the entire sample included that ECT is curative, ECT is painful, nausea and vomiting are problems commonly associated with ECT, and seizure induction is not an expected effect. Overall, participants indicated a low degree of confidence in their responses. Although participants answered dichotomous choice questions with a fair degree of accuracy, participants' low confidence in their answers suggests that ECT remains poorly understood. The paper concludes with general and specific suggestions made to improve public understanding of ECT.

項目応答理論による全部床義歯装着者を対象としたそしゃく能力検査表の開発

The purposes of this study were to verify unidimensionality of the questionnaire comprising 58 food items designed to evaluate the masticatory ability of complete denture wearers, and to reconstruct it to be shorter but accurate using the item response theory (IRT). The 230 subjects were edentulous and complete denture wearers.The results were as follows:1. Forty-one items showed unidimensionality based on principal factor analysis of the tetrachoric correlation matrix, except 17 items whose proportions of correct answers were above 0.90.2. A one-parameter logistic model was applied to 26 items, whose principal factor solutions were above 0.69, and fitted the model based on chi-square statistics. The parameters were standardized according to ability.3. The scale, which comprises 10 items and serves as an approximate interval scale, was reconstructed.4. The KR-20 coefficient of the scale was 0.83.5. The scores showed significant differences between the three groups which were classified by subjective assessments of their own masticatory abilities (p<0.01): male scores were higher than those of females (p<0.05), were unrelated to age (r=-0.15, p<0.05), and increased when new dentures were made (p<0.01).6. It appeared that the scale has high reliability and validity as a clinical test.

Facts, Misconceptions, and Myths about Cancer

Misconceptions about cancer may increase the level of fear in the general public and render coping more difficult in cancer patients. The aim of this survey was to study the level of knowledge and misconceptions. Materials and Methods: A questionnaire comprising 27 questions related to cancer etiology, treatment, and prognosis was mailed to 100 patients with gynecological cancers and to 120 healthy women. Results: The response rates were 86 and 78%, respectively. The proportion of correct answers was similar in both groups. Everyone considered cancer to be noncontagious. A majority knew that gynecological cancers have a good prognosis if diagnosed in early stages and that morphine is very effective in the treatment of severe cancer pain, but believed that it causes addiction. Questions with a significant proportion of erroneous answers were related to hormones and cancer. Patients were more aware of the risk associated between unopposed estrogen therapy and endometrial carcinoma (P< 0.05). However, the patients incorrectly believed that combined hormonal therapy (estrogen + gestagens) also increased the risk of endometrial and ovarians carcinoma and they did so much more often than the control group (P< 0.05). The general public more often believed that cancer often arises as a consequence of previous physical injury (P< 0.05). Formal education correlated positively with correct responses (P< 0.01). In conclusion, the results emphasize the importance of proper information about cancer and cancer treatment, especially with regard to hormonal treatment and the use of morphine. Individuals with the least formal education constitute an especially important target group for information.

A Distribution‐Free Approach for Comparing Growth of Knowledge

The longitudinal testing of student achievement requires the solution of several new problem areas. In this article, several small groups of medical students at the University of Limburg Medical School in Maastricht, The Netherlands, are compared with respect to their performances. The results indicate, that, despite the possession of more knowledge at entrance, students with a low rate of growth of knowledge in the first year demonstrate a lower level of knowledge after the second academic year and continue to do so throughout the academic program when compared to students who show a higher rate of growth of knowledge in the first year. The analysis has been carried out using a distribution‐free version of a longitudinal IRT‐model suggested by Albers, Does, Imbos, and Janssen (1989). Furthermore, growth of knowledge has been described by means of a general regression model. Statistical inferences are possible using a randomization design extended to the situation where the observations are time‐dependent proportions of correct answers.

Knowledge of medication in hospitalized chronic respiratory patients.

Object of the study was to assess educative needs in the field of drug therapy among 99 chronic patients with advanced chronic lung disease admitted to the Respiratory Service of the Hospital Sta. Creu i Sant Pau (Barcelona, Spain). The knowledge of the patients about their previous drug treatment, sources of information as well as patients' conception of side-effects, was gathered from medical records and by means of a questionnaire. The majority of patients studied were male (63%), aged over 60 years (average 63 +/- 12), illiterate or with basic education (88%), had a chronic obstructive, pulmonary disease (76%) and with an important degree of chronicity. They had been treated for their condition during a mean of 8.4 years and took an average of 4.6 drugs. 31% Of patients did not answer any question about their medication properly and only 17% gave a correct answer to all the questions. The lower the age and the higher the educational level, the higher the proportion of correct answers to knowledge questions. 35% Of the patients stated not to have been informed about their medication and 55% stated that they had read the patient package inserts.

Mathematical Knowledge Developed at Work: The Contribution of Practice Versus the Contribution of Schooling

Mathematical knowledge developed independently of school instruction has been documented among children as well as adults. However, the limits and strengths of this knowledge are not yet well known, and its relationship to knowledge acquired in school remains to be clarified. This study analyzes the use and understanding of mathematical knowledge among bookies with 0 to 11 years of schooling who work in a special kind of lottery game. They were observed at work while dealing with clients and while solving modified problems based on naturalistic observations. At work, regardless of their level of instruction, bookies were always highly efficient. When solving modified problems presented by the examiner, unschooled bookies often refused to try to solve some of them; when they attempted to solve the problems, however, their proportion of correct answers was similar to that found among more schooled subjects. Number of correct answers and a more general ability to analyze and to explain verbally the relations...

Effect of glare on performance of a VDT reading-comprehension task.

This study was undertaken to determine whether objective measures of reading performance are affected by short exposure to text on a display when glare is present. Reading performance was assessed using reading time and correctness of answers as measures. In a preliminary experiment 20 reading passages were ranked according to subjective reading difficulty and also according to an objective measure. Subsequently, in the main experiment subjects read the 20 passages presented on a VDT under both no-glare and glare conditions. When task difficulty was measured by subjective ranking, glare was found to increase the amount of time required to read relatively easy passages and to decrease the amount of time required to read relatively difficult passages. Other findings included a general increase in reading time and a decrease in the proportion of correct answers with increases in task difficulty for both subjective and objective ranking of difficulty.

Toddler peer interaction in mixed age groups

The present research examined whether children's ability to impute false belief is overridden or impaired by content that activates an early-developing, prepotent motivational system: predator avoidance. In three studies, children aged 3 to 8 years completed variants of a false-belief test, including analogous predator-avoidance and playmate-avoidances scenarios, in which passing the test meant having the focal character get caught by the pursuer. The proportion of correct answers in the playmate-avoidance scenario was reliably greater than in the predator-avoidance scenario, though this effect largely dissipated by 7 to 8 years of age. Enhanced predatory stimuli significantly increased the frequency of false-belief errors in the predator-avoidance scenario (Study 3). Analysis of children's justifications revealed that predator-avoidance false-belief errors were overwhelming motivated by a desire for the prey to avoid the predator (Study 2). The predator-avoidance effect was not an artifact of children generally performing better in playmate than predator–prey scenarios (Studies 1 and 3), the predator-avoidance scenario simply evoking strong emotions (Study 3), or differences between children in their knowledge of predator–prey relationships (Study 1) or executive-function abilities (Study 2). Findings support the hypothesis that activation of the predator-avoidance system generates prepotent response patterns that impair or override full consideration of the mental states of the prey characters in false-belief stories.

Revision and Validation of a Test for Assessing the Spatial Conceptual Abilities of Visually Impaired Children

The purpose of the investigation described in this article was to revise Hill's test for assessing the development of spatial concepts among visually impaired children, “Concepts Involved in Body Position and Space,” establish the test's validity and reliability, and collect normative data. Orientation and mobility specialists administered the revised instrument to 273 visually impaired children ages 6 through 10 from 48 different educational programs in 23 states. Normative data were then collected in the form of percentiles by age; percentage passing each item by age and by reading modes; and indexes for the difficulty and discriminatory power of each item as well as the proportion of correct answers. According to the results, the revised instrument is valid and reliable enough to use with visually impaired children in the age groups studied.

Family situation of the juvenile diabetic.

The family situation of juvenile diabetics in the province of Havana has been studied by interviewing the children and their mothers or guardians. Emotional stress factors in family life were detected. By means of a questionnaire concerning theoretical and practical aspects of diabetes mellitus it was found that the proportion of correct answers on theoretical aspects increased with age although this increase reached the level of statistical significance only for the mothers. Children who had attended summer camps for diabetics gave significantly more correct answers than those who had not; especially the 6–10-year age group stood out for the high level of its theoretical knowledge. Juvenile diabetics followed at the Department of Infantile Endocrinology of the Institute of Endocrinology and Metabolic Disorders were best informed.

Blood groups in ankylosing spondylitis.

<h3>Abstract</h3> <h3>Objective</h3> To compare the ability of users of 2 medical search engines, InfoClinique and the Trip database, to provide correct answers to clinical questions and to explore the perceived effects of the tools on the clinical decision-making process. <h3>Design</h3> Randomized trial. <h3>Setting</h3> Three family medicine units of the family medicine program of the Faculty of Medicine at Laval University in Quebec city, Que. <h3>Participants</h3> Fifteen second-year family medicine residents. <h3>Intervention</h3> Residents generated 30 structured questions about therapy or preventive treatment (2 questions per resident) based on clinical encounters. Using an Internet platform designed for the trial, each resident answered 20 of these questions (their own 2, plus 18 of the questions formulated by other residents, selected randomly) before and after searching for information with 1 of the 2 search engines. For each question, 5 residents were randomly assigned to begin their search with InfoClinique and 5 with the Trip database. <h3>Main outcome measures</h3> The ability of residents to provide correct answers to clinical questions using the search engines, as determined by third-party evaluation. After answering each question, participants completed a questionnaire to assess their perception of the engine’s effect on the decision-making process in clinical practice. <h3>Results</h3> Of 300 possible pairs of answers (1 answer before and 1 after the initial search), 254 (85%) were produced by 14 residents. Of these, 132 (52%) and 122 (48%) pairs of answers concerned questions that had been assigned an initial search with InfoClinique and the Trip database, respectively. Both engines produced an important and similar absolute increase in the proportion of correct answers after searching (26% to 62% for InfoClinique, for an increase of 36%; 24% to 63% for the Trip database, for an increase of 39%; <i>P</i> = .68). For all 30 clinical questions, at least 1 resident produced the correct answer after searching with either search engine. The mean (SD) time of the initial search for each question was 23.5 (7.6) minutes with InfoClinique and 22.3 (7.8) minutes with the Trip database (<i>P</i> = .30). Participants’ perceptions of each engine’s effect on the decision-making process were very positive and similar for both search engines. <h3>Conclusion</h3> Family medicine residents’ ability to provide correct answers to clinical questions increased dramatically and similarly with the use of both InfoClinique and the Trip database. These tools have strong potential to increase the quality of medical care.

A note on the normal ogive or logistic curve in item analysis.

It is common to assume that the proportion of correct answers to an item has a normal-ogive or logistic relationship to total test score. However, this is shown to be a mistaken and an undesirable notion.

A graphical method for the rapid calculation of biserial and point biserial correlation in test research.

A description is given of a diagram (available separately) for computing biserial or point biserial correlation coefficients. The diagram is maximally useful where large numbers of coefficients are to be calculated in test item analysis. The diagram is entered with the mean criterion score of the group passing the item and the proportion of correct answers to the item.