How do medical students in their clinical years perceive basic sciences courses at King Saud University?

<b>Background and Objectives :</b> The inclusion of detailed basic science courses in medical school curricula has been a concern of students. The main objective of this study was to explore the attitudes of medical students towards basic sciences courses taught to them in the preclinical years and the applicability of these courses to current clinical practice. <b>Design and Setting :</b> A cross-sectional survey was conducted during 2008-2009 among medical students in their clinical years at King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. <b>Methods</b> : Thirty percent of all students (n=314) were randomly selected to receive a questionnaire designed to evaluate their opinions about course load, ability to recall information, value of practical sessions, availability of references and course guidelines, and the applicability of individual courses to clinical practice. <b>Results</b> : Students identified anatomy and pathology as the courses most overloaded with content (76&#x0025; and 70&#x0025;, respectively). Half of the students felt they retained the most knowledge of physiology (50&#x0025;), while less than a quarter of students (19&#x0025;) felt they retained the most information from biochemistry coursework. The role of practical sessions in facilitating theoretical understanding was more evident in anatomy (69&#x0025;). Physiology was perceived as the subject with the highest applicability to clinical practice (66&#x0025;), while pathology (29&#x0025;) was identified as the subject with the least practical application. Students became increasingly negative in their opinions about basic science courses as they progressed through their medical education. <b>Conclusion</b> : Current attitudes of medical students towards their basic science courses indicate a need to reform the curricula so as to maximize the benefit of these courses

Positive or negative spirals of online behavior? Exploring reciprocal associations between being the actor and the recipient of prosocial and antisocial behavior online

Abstract: Bidirectional associations between being cyberbullied and cyberbullying others have been suggested, as well as bidirectional patterns of online prosocial behavior (reciprocity). However, so far, these relations have been studied as population-level associations, and it is not clear whether they also reflect within-person behavioral patterns. Therefore, this study aimed to disentangle between-person and within-person processes in online antisocial (cyberbullying) and prosocial behavior over time. Random intercept cross-lagged panel models were used to examine long-term within-person patterns of involvement in cyberbullying and online prosocial behavior. The findings showed no within-person effects between cyberbullying victimization and perpetration over time. In contrast, results did reveal significant within-person autoregressive effects of performing and receiving online prosocial behavior over time, and within-person cross-lagged effects between receiving online prosocial behavior and acting prosocially later on. These results indicate long-term positive, reinforcing spirals of prosocial exchanges, but no long-term negative spirals of cyberbullying perpetration and victimization