1,720,963 research outputs found
Exploring the Predictive Validity of Cognitive and Non-cognitive Admissions Measures in a Graduate Speech-Language Pathology Program
No full textIntroduction
Speech-language pathology (SLP) programs should ensure unbiased, honest, and inclusive selection and admission of applicants with the greatest chance of excelling within their program to become competent speech-language pathologists. In assessing applicants, these programs commonly rely on undergraduate Grade Point Average (UGPA) and Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores as standard cognitive admission measures. Additionally, personal statements and letters of recommendation are frequently employed as non-cognitive measures in the selection of SLP students. An emerging alternative for assessing non-cognitive attributes in applicants is the Casper test, an online, valid, and reliable assessment increasingly adopted by health sciences programs, including SLP programs. Despite the increase in Casper’s use, there remains a research gap exploring the integration of this quantitative non-cognitive test into the admissions process for SLP programs.
Moreover, a limited body of empirical research specifically examines predictors of in-program clinical performance. Identifying these predictors has the potential to enhance the selection process, ensuring the admission of versatile applicants who can evolve into well-rounded, proficient clinicians. Such individuals would possess the capacity to deliver high-quality care and make meaningful contributions to the field of SLP.
Objective
To analyze the incremental validity of Casper over UGPA and GRE in predicting in-program clinical performance and investigate the relationships between Casper, UGPA and GRE weightings with respect to clinical performance.
Methods
A non-experimental quantitative research design using hierarchical multiple regression was used to determine the incremental validity of admission measures (i.e., UGPA, GRE, and Casper test score) in predicting in-program clinical performance as indicated by the scores on the practicum Clinical Appraisal Form. Additionally, differential weights were systematically applied to cognitive (UGPA, GRE) and non-cognitive admission measures (Casper) and then correlated with clinical performance. The magnitude of the correlation coefficients was used to identify ideal weights of admission measures to maximize clinical performance for three cohorts of applicants: 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Results
In predicting clinical performance, the analysis of both the 2019 and 2020 cohorts failed to identify any significant results related to the incremental validity of non-cognitive admissions measures (Casper) over cognitive admission measures (UGPA and GRE). Results for the 2021 cohort of SLP students suggest that the Casper test exhibited weak to moderate incremental validity concerning the non-technical aspects of clinical evaluation during the first fieldwork placement. Allocating more than 50% weight to Casper and the other 50% to UGPA and GRE consistently showed a weak to moderate correlation with the non-technical outcomes of clinical evaluation.
Conclusion
The study adds to the limited body of research on predictors of clinical success in SLP students. Despite the study's low predictive result, the research indicates that SLP graduate programs may find value in incorporating the Casper test into their admissions processes
Virtual Reality for Skill Enhancement and Affective Regulation in Post Secondary Education
Get PDFBackground: Virtual reality (VR) in post-secondary education features the use of digitally rendered learning environments, allowing students to practice actions that resemble professional real-world tasks. This report addresses the prevalence, technical and non-technical implementation of VR across a wide array of education disciplines, while also providing details of an investigation that used immersive VR for affective regulation in Occupational Therapy students, who were preparing for clinical practical exams. This report aimed to fill the gaps in the literature, regarding how immersive VR was implemented in post-secondary education curricula while also determining the effectiveness of immersive VR to reduce anxiety in students.
Methods: A systematic review was performed to determine how immersive VR was being incorporated into post-secondary settings, noting favourable outcomes from VR’s use after comparing it to other learning methods. The affective regulation investigation used a prospective experimental nonrandomized control trial to compare two groups of first-year Occupational Therapy students’ state anxiety, test anxiety and academic self-efficacy levels, measured at four different timepoints by self-reported psychometric scales, analyzed with a mixed factorial ANOVA. The affective regulation investigation utilized an immersive VR simulation, depicting a virtual clinic and standardized patient, who students could interview in natural language.
Findings: This report shows evidence of VR’s capability to enhance post-secondary students’ technical, non-technical and affective regulatory skill. Immersive VR’s capability to reduce state anxiety in Occupational Therapy students was also observed. VR in Health Science education has repeatedly demonstrated its ability to show positive affective reaction in students while enhancing their skills across a wide variety of skill learning tasks. However, skill transferability from the virtual to real-world, showing favourable incentive for VR’s adoption into Health Sciences education with cost-effective outcomes, remains to be established
Validating student score inferences using person fit statistic and verbal reports: A person-fit study for cognitive diagnostic assessment
No full textThe goal of this study was to investigate the usefulness of person-fit analysis in validating student score inferences in a cognitive diagnostic assessment. In this study, a two-stage procedure was used to evaluate person fit for a diagnostic test in the domain of statistical hypothesis testing. In the first stage, the person-fit statistic, the hierarchy consistency index (HCI; Cui, 2007; Cui & Leighton, 2009), was used to identify the misfitting student item-score vectors. In the second stage, students’ verbal reports were collected to provide additional information about students’ response processes so as to reveal the actual causes of misfits. This two-stage procedure helped to identify the misfits of item-score vectors to the cognitive model used in the design and analysis of the diagnostic test, and to discover the reasons of misfits so that students’ problem-solving strategies were better understood and their performances were interpreted in a more meaningful way
Validating student score inferences using person fit statistic and verbal reports: A person-fit study for cognitive diagnostic assessment
No full textThe goal of this study was to investigate the usefulness of person-fit analysis in validating student score inferences in a cognitive diagnostic assessment. In this study, a two-stage procedure was used to evaluate person fit for a diagnostic test in the domain of statistical hypothesis testing. In the first stage, the person-fit statistic, the hierarchy consistency index (HCI; Cui, 2007; Cui & Leighton, 2009), was used to identify the misfitting student item-score vectors. In the second stage, students’ verbal reports were collected to provide additional information about students’ response processes so as to reveal the actual causes of misfits. This two-stage procedure helped to identify the misfits of item-score vectors to the cognitive model used in the design and analysis of the diagnostic test, and to discover the reasons of misfits so that students’ problem-solving strategies were better understood and their performances were interpreted in a more meaningful way
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Developing score reports for cognitive diagnostic assessment
Get PDFThis paper presents a framework to provide a structured approach for developing score reports for cognitive diagnostic assessments (CDAs). Guidelines for reporting and presenting diagnostic scores are based on a review of current educational test score reporting practices and literature from the area of information design. A sample diagnostic report is presented to illustrate application of the reporting framework in the context of one CDA procedure called the Attribute Hierarchy Method. Integration and application of interdisciplinary techniques from education, information design, and technology are required for effective score reporting. While the AHM is used in this paper, this framework is applicable to any attribute-based diagnostic testing method
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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