Which Motivational Behaviors Impact Success in a Clinical Anatomy Course for Entry Level Doctor of Physical Therapy Students?

Objectives: The motivational behavior of self-efficacy for learning and performance was correlated with academic success in Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students taking clinical anatomy, the first foundational course in the program. Students’ motivation strategies have been reported to be important factors in academic success, however, these strategies have not been investigated in DPT students. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine if course grade in clinical anatomy was correlated with the motivation subscales of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ).Materials and Methods: The MSLQ was administered to 33first-year DPT students who consented to participate in the study. Correlation (Pearson r zero order) between the subscales and final course grade in clinical anatomy were determined. Results: Self-efficacy for learning and performance was correlated with course grade (r(31)=.44, p \u3c.05), while intrinsic and extrinsic goal orientation, task value, control of learning beliefs, and test anxiety, were poorly correlated. Conclusions: The results of the current study, indicating that self-efficacy for learning and performance is correlated with academic success, could be utilized in DPT programs to broaden admission processes, and aid in the development of remedial curricular and teaching strategies to support students identified with poor self-efficacy for learning and performance

Asynchronous video and the development of instructor social presence and student engagement

Enrollment in online learning continues to grow in the higher education sector, along with persistent goals dedicated to achieving better student outcomes and lowering attrition rates. Improved student engagement has been shown to possibly reduce attrition rates through a greater sense of connectedness and decreased feelings of isolation among online learners. Instructor social presence may be the most important factor in building the relationships that foster learning and retention. Through communication, the instructor conveys the necessary immediacy behaviors required to cultivate these interpersonal relationships. With improved technology that allows for enhanced communication in online classrooms, the use of asynchronous video may be an effective way to improve instructor social presence and student engagement. This quasi-experimental design aimed to determine whether asynchronous video or text-based communication increased students\u27 perceptions of instructor social presence and student engagement in an online graduate classroom. Significance was found for student engagement based on the number of discussion posts and length of discussion posts. Students in the group who received text-based communication demonstrated increased student engagement in voluntary discussion boards as opposed to students in the group who received asynchronous video. There was no significant difference found for instructor social presence between the two groups

Examining the Sustainability of Screening for Distress, the Sixth Vital Sign, in Two Outpatient Oncology Clinics

Background: This study explored the sustainability of Screening for Distress, a program that facilitates distress management, in two cancer clinics six months post-implementation. Methods: A mixed-method cross-sectional design was utilized. To assess program sustainability and explore the barriers and facilitators of sustainability 184 charts were reviewed and sixteen semi-structured interviews were conducted. Results: 163 (88.6%) charts had completed tools and a conversation about the tool took place in 130 (79.8%) of those. 89 (54.6%) tools warranted an intervention and 68 (76.4%) of those had an intervention documented. Five themes influencing sustainability emerged: attitudes, knowledge and beliefs, outcome expectancy, implementation approach, integration with existing practices, and external factors. Conclusions: This study suggests that screening was largely sustained, possibly due to positive attitudes and outcome expectancy. However, sustainability may be enhanced by formally integrating screening with existing practices, addressing potential knowledge gaps, and ensuring engagement with all stakeholder groups

A Critical Examination of School-based Physiotherapists’ Perceived Aptitude and Willingness to Facilitate Health and Wellness Promotion

Placing value on the health and wellness of Children with Disabilities (CWD) should be a core societal value. Twenty percent of children with disabilities aged 10 to 17 are obese. Decreased access to developmentally appropriate recreational activities, and inexperienced instructors lack of knowledge to effectively support their inclusion are barriers to their participation. School-based Physical Therapists (SBPT) are in a distinctive position to provide appropriate and modified fitness programs for children with disabilities. The purpose of this basic qualitative design study was to determine SBPTs’ perspectives on their aptitude and willingness to facilitate fitness, health, and wellness promotion programs for CWD. Social cognitive theory was used as the theoretical grounding for the conceptual framework of this research. The conceptual framework that guided this research was constructed from a combination of the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health for Children and Youth and the Comprehensive School Physical Activity Program conceptual framework. Purposive sampling yielded 12 participants who took part in semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed through Colaizzi’s seven step method. Results showed that SBPTs felt capable and willing to provide fitness, health, and wellness programs for CWD. Results support findings from the literature that suggest SBPTs are underutilized in the school setting and are equipped to facilitate fitness, health, and wellness initiatives for CWD. Findings inform stakeholders on strategies to steer SBPTs’ role as healthcare professionals in an educational environment. This research brings increased awareness to the potential contribution of SBPTs to partner with schools and families to facilitate fitness, health, and wellness programs for CWD

A longitudinal analysis of symptom clusters in cancer patients and their sociodemographic predictors

Context: Exploring the relationships between concurrent symptoms or “symptom clusters” (SCs) longitudinally may complement the knowledge gained from the traditional approach of examining individual symptoms or SCs crosssectionally. Objectives: To identify consistent SCs over the course of one year and determine the possible associations between SCs and demographic and medical characteristics, and between SCs and emotional distress. Methods: This study was an exploratory longitudinal analysis of SCs in a large sample of newly diagnosed cancer patients. Patients provided symptom assessment data at baseline, three, six, and 12 months. A factor analysis was conducted (controlling for the patient over time) on pain, fatigue, anxiety, depression, sleep, weight change, and food intake items to identify clusters. A panel regression on each cluster explored associations with demographic and medical characteristics and distress. Results: In total, 877 patients provided baseline data, with 505 retained at 12 months. Three SCs explained 71% of the variance. The somatic cluster included pain, fatigue, and sleep; the psychological cluster included anxiety and depression; and the nutrition cluster consisted of weight and food intake. Low income and treatment with radiation or chemotherapy predicted higher somatic symptom burden. Younger age, being female, low income, and treatment with surgery predicted more psychological symptomatology. Older age and treatment with surgery predicted higher nutritional burden. Patients with higher somatic, psychological, and nutritional symptom burden reported higher distress. Conclusion: The presence of SCs across the first year of diagnosis supports the need for routine and ongoing screening for the range of symptoms that may be experienced by patients. Further work is needed to develop interventions that better target individual symptoms that cluster, as well as the entire cluster itself

Screening for distress, the 6th vital sign: common problems in cancer outpatients over one year in usual care: associations with marital status, sex, and age

Article deposited according to agreement with BMC, December 2, 2010 and according to publisher policies: http://www.biomedcentral.com/about/copyright [May 31, 2013].YesFunding provided by the Open Access Authors Fund

Adaptive artificial immune networks for mitigating DoS flooding attacks

Denial of service attacks pose a threat in constant growth. This is mainly due to their tendency to gain in sophistication, ease of implementation, obfuscation and the recent improvements in occultation of fingerprints. On the other hand, progress towards self-organizing networks, and the different techniques involved in their development, such as software-defined networking, network-function virtualization, artificial intelligence or cloud computing, facilitates the design of new defensive strategies, more complete, consistent and able to adapt the defensive deployment to the current status of the network. In order to contribute to their development, in this paper, the use of artificial immune systems to mitigate denial of service attacks is proposed. The approach is based on building networks of distributed sensors suited to the requirements of the monitored environment. These components are capable of identifying threats and reacting according to the behavior of the biological defense mechanisms in human beings. It is accomplished by emulating the different immune reactions, the establishment of quarantine areas and the construction of immune memory. For their assessment, experiments with public domain datasets (KDD’99, CAIDA’07 and CAIDA’08) and simulations on various network configurations based on traffic samples gathered by the University Complutense of Madrid and flooding attacks generated by the tool DDoSIM were performed.Depto. de Ingeniería de Software e Inteligencia Artificial (ISIA)Fac. de InformáticaTRUEpu