Kemampuan Berpikir Refraktif Matematis Mahasiswa melalui Pembelajaran Peer-Assited Reflection

Refractive thinking needs to be developed in lectures because it has an essential role in decision-making. However, so far, there has not been found any relevant research that develops refractive thinking through applying a learning strategy. The purpose of this study was to obtain an overview of the enhancement of students' mathematical refractive thinking ability based on prior mathematical knowledge through the application of Peer-Assisted Reflection learning and the influence of the interaction of learning factors and the level of prior mathematical knowledge on enhancing mathematical refractive thinking ability. This research is a quantitative study with a quasi-experimental design. Using the purposive sampling technique, 73 students were selected to take the Multivariable Calculus course. The research sample was students who took the Multivariable Calculus course. The instrument used was a prior mathematical knowledge test and a mathematical refractive thinking ability test. Data analysis used t-test, t’-test, Mann-Whitney U test, Aligned Rank Transform, and two-way ANOVA. The findings of this study are: (1) The enhancement of students' mathematical refractive thinking ability who got Peer-Assisted Reflection learning is better than those who got conventional learning for all levels of prior mathematical knowledge; and (2) There is no significant effect on the interaction between learning and prior mathematical knowledge on improving mathematical refractive thinking ability.

Efeito analgésico da música durante a fotocoagulação retinal a laser em diabéticos: Um estudo cruzado, randomizado e controlado por placebo

Objetivo: Avaliar prospectivamente o efeito analgésico da música de preferência do paciente com retinopatia diabética que foram submetidos à fotocoagaluação retiniana a laser (FRL). Metodologia: Trata-se de um ensaio clínico controlado, randomizado, cego e crossover de dois períodos. Participaram vinte pacientes (40 olhos) com retinopatia diabética proliferativa que foram submetidos à FRL. A escuta musical de preferência do paciente antes e durante a FRL foi a intervenção não farmacológica testada. O grupo controle (GC) foi composto por pacientes que receberam apenas o tratamento farmacológico padrão e o grupo experimental (GE) por aqueles que receberam a intervenção associada ao tratamento farmacológico padrão. A dor foi mensurada pela Escala Numérica Verbal. As diferenças dos escores de dor foram examinadas por meio dos testes Aligned Rank Transformed ANOVA, Mann-Whitney U e de Wilcoxon. O tamanho do efeito das diferenças foi avaliado usando Tamanhos de Efeito Rank Bisserial e Parcial Square. Resultados: Os participantes eram predominantemente do sexo masculino (60%), adultos (57,4±9,1 anos), com comorbidades (65%), com deficiência visual ≥ 1 ano (65%). Os participantes que ouviram música apresentaram menores escores de dor (GE: 4,80±2,46) comparados aos que não ouviram (GC:6,75±1,59; p=0,013). A aplicação de música de preferência do paciente mostrou um grande tamanho do efeito analgésico (η²=0,189). Conclusão: Ouvir música de preferência do paciente, associada à analgesia padrão, é eficaz no alívio da dor aguda relacionada à FRL e deve ser incorporada à prática clínica para o tratamento multimodal da dor nesse procedimento.

Personality Features in Obesity

Obesity is a widespread and broadly consequential health condition associated with numerous medical complications that could increase mortality rates. As personality concerned individual’s patterns of feeling, behavior, and thinking, it may help in understanding how people with obesity differ from people with normal-weight status in their typical weight-relevant behavior. So far, studies about personality and BMI associations have mainly focused on broad personality traits. The main purpose of this study was to explore the personality and health associations among a clinical group composed of 46 outpatients with overweight/obesity (mean age = 55.83; SD = 12.84) in comparison to a healthy control group that included 46 subjects (mean age = 54.96; SD = 12.60). Both the clinical and control groups were composed of 14 males and 32 females. Several personality and psychopathological aspects were assessed with the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI). The results of the analysis of variance of aligned rank transformed (ART) showed that patients with overweight/obesity reported higher scores for Somatic Complaints, Depression, and Borderline Features than the control group. Logistic regression highlighted specifically that the subscales of the Borderline Features assessing the Negative Relationship contributed to the increased risk of belonging to the clinical group. For the purpose of this study, the role of gender was considered. The present findings highlight the importance of focusing on assessing personality functioning in the health context and on specific characteristics of interpersonal relationships to promote more tailored treatments.

Effective Analysis of Interactive Effects with Non-Normal Data Using the Aligned Rank Transform, ARTool and SAS® University Edition

Most statistical techniques commonly used in horticultural research are parametric tests that are valid only for normal data with homogeneous variances. While parametric tests are robust when the data ‘slightly’ deviate from normality, a significant departure from normality leads to reduced power and the probability of a type I error increases. Transformations often used to normalize non-normal data can be time consuming, cumbersome and confusing and common non-parametric tests are not appropriate for evaluating interactive effects common in horticultural research. The aligned rank transformation allows non-parametric testing for interactions and main effects using standard ANOVA techniques. This has not been widely adapted due to its rigorous mathematical nature, however, a downloadable (ARTool) is now available, which performs the math needed for the transformation. This study provides step-by-step instructions for integrating ARTool with the free edition of SAS (SAS University Edition) in an easily employed method for testing normality, transforming data with aligned ranks, and analysing data using standard ANOVAs.

استخدام بعض الطرائق المعلمية واللامعلمية لتحليل التجارب العاملية مع تطبيق عملي

المستخلص تطرقنا في هذا البحث على التجارب العاملية واختبار معنوية التأثيرات الرئيسية، التفاعل للعوامل والتأثيرات البسيطة لها عن طريق اختبار F المعلمي (جدول تحليل التباين ANOVA) لتحليل بيانات التجربة العاملية وكما هو معروف ان تحليل التباين يتطلب عدة فروض (شروط) لتحقيقها لذا في حالة خرق في احد هذه الشروط نقوم بإجراء تحويل على البيانات لكي تطابق او تحقق شروط تحليل التباين الا انه لوحظ ان تلك التحويلات لا تعطي نتائج دقيقة لذا نلجأ الى استخدام الاختبارات او الطرائق اللامعلمية التي تعمل كحل او بديل عن الاختبارات (الطرائق) المعلمية وهي طريقة تحويل الرتبة RT)) Rank Transformation وطريقة تحويل الرتبة المتراصفة ART)) Aligned Rank Transformation وتطبيقها على بيانات تجربة حقيقية تم الحصول عليها من كلية الطب البيطري جامعة بغداد و بعد اختبار البيانات وجدنا انها لا تتوزع توزيع طبيعي وانها تعاني من مشكلة عدم تجانس التباينات , تم التوصل الى ان تطبيق تحليل التباين على تلك البيانات لم يعطي المعنوية لجميع تأثيرات العوامل كذلك بالنسبة للتحويلات اما عند تطبيق الطرائق اللامعلمية فكانت تعطي نتائج معنوية عالية لتأثيرات العوامل المدروسة .

A novel rank-based non-parametric method for longitudinal ordinal data

Longitudinal ordinal data are common in biomedical research. Although various methods for the analysis of such data have been proposed in the past few decades, they are limited in several ways. For instance, the constraints on parameters in the proportional odds model may result in convergence problems; the rank-based aligned rank transform method imposes constraints on other parameters and the distributional assumptions with parametric model. We propose a novel rank-based non-parametric method that models the profile rather than the distribution of the data to make an effective statistical inference without the constraint conditions. We construct the test statistic of the interaction first, and then construct the test statistics of the main effects separately with or without the interaction, while “adjusted coefficient” for the case of ties is derived. A simulation study is conducted for comparison between rank-based non-parametric and rank-transformed analysis of variance. The results show that type I errors of the two methods are both maintained closer to the priori level, but the statistical power of rank-based non-parametric is greater than that of rank-transformed analysis of variance, suggesting higher efficiency of the former. We then apply rank-based non-parametric to two real studies on acne and osteoporosis, and the results also illustrate the effectiveness of rank-based non-parametric, particularly when the distribution is skewed.