Developing a comprehensive tool to assess professional attitude among physicians and medical students

It appears that up until now, no comprehensive tool has been developed to assess medical students’ attitudes toward the different dimensions of professionalism. The present study aimed to develop a comprehensive quantitative tool to evaluate medical students’ attitudes toward professionalism. This study consisted of two phases: The first phase was item generation and questionnaire design based on literature review and a qualitative survey. The qualitative data were extracted from 49 semi-structured individual interviews and one focus group discussion. In the second phase, the questionnaire was developed and its face, content, and structure validity and reliability were evaluated. To measure the construct validity of the questionnaire, a cross-sectional study was conducted on 354 medical students at different academic levels at Isfahan University of Medical Sciences. The final questionnaire was loaded on five factors. The factors accounted for 43.5% of the total variance. Moreover, Cronbach's alpha was 0.84 for the total scale, and the interclass correlation coefficient was 0.77 for the test-retest reliability. The 17-item questionnaire measuring medical students’ professional attitude had acceptable validity and reliability and can be adopted in other studies on physicians’ and medical students’ professional attitudes.

Indonesian Dental Students' Attitudes, Knowledge, Preparation, and Willingness to Treat HIV/AIDS Patients

Objective To assess the Indonesian dental students' knowledge of HIV/AIDS in terms of transmission and oral manifestation, the attitudes toward people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), the preparedness in infection control, and willingness to treat PLWHA, and assess the factors for willingness to treat PLWHA. Materials and Methods A modified version of a questionnaire used to assess dental students' knowledge, attitude, preparedness, and willingness to treat PLWHA in China was used. The questionnaire was cross-culturally adapted into Indonesian and had been pre-tested for face validity and test and retest reliability. The dental students from 32 dental schools in Indonesia were invited to participate in the study. Results A total of 1,280 dental students from 23 dental schools participated in the study. This study found that only 63% of students scored higher than 70% for knowledge of HIV/AIDS, and the mean score for knowledge was 15.02 (2.4). Higher than 80% of students had a positive professional attitude toward PWLHA; however, 80% of students worried about possible disease transmission in the dental office by PLWHA and 70% of students overestimated the occupational risk when treating PLWHA. The dental students had good preparedness for infection control with a mean score for preparedness of 3.19 (0.4). The mean score for willingness was 2.5 (0.9). Willingness to treat significantly differed by the type of universities, gender, age, and clinical experience. This study showed that knowledge about HIV/AIDS correlated with the willingness to treat PLWHA among dental students. Conclusion Dental students who have good knowledge about HIV infection tend to have a good willingness to treat PLWHA. The knowledge would in turn affect their attitude, preparedness, and willingness to provide care for PLWHA with confidence and comfort. This study suggests that the improvement of dental training may play an important role in changing students' perception of willingness to treat PLWHA.

Increasing teacher professionalism through the regeneration system

The professional attitude of a teacher is no longer reflected at this time. Where they only carry out the task of transferring knowledge without providing direction and guidance that helps the development process of each student. The purpose of this research is to build and provide efforts to develop and improve the professional attitude of a teacher by carrying out a regeneration system with a recruitment process for every new cadre who wants to apply as a teacher. The method used in this research is a qualitative method with a literature study type approach. Where the researchers compared the results of several previous findings. From the results of this study it can be concluded that the principal has a very important role in using this regeneration system. Where the principal must always motivate the teachers. With the provision of motivation and enthusiasm, teachers will feel that they are getting an award in work performance.

Using Epistemic Game Development to Teach Software Development Skills

This paper presents a pilot study on the evaluation of instruments for data gathering for an epistemic game development competition for high school students. The initial results show that a significant percentage of the students who participated in the competition appear to exhibit a skillset of professional attitude, software-related knowledge, and employability traits, and this skillset may be attributed to the intervention. The data was validated through a two-method triangulation technique that utilized expert evaluation and participant interviews. The data analysis shows early indicators of the desired learning outcomes, although a more thorough methodology is needed to verify this. Furthermore, the competition acts as an awareness campaign that promotes computer science studies through a gamification process. It is proposed that competitions of this type are held and evaluated on an annual basis to maximize the benefits and to further prepare students to acquire early in their studies a skillset that will make them the innovators of the future society.

Effect of explicit and implicit components of psychologists’ mental experience on their parental competence

The purpose of this research was to determine the effect of various components of psychologists’ mental experience (ME) on their parental competence (PC) when dealing with children of primary school age. We have distinguished three factors – professional attitude, professional competence and professional learning, dividing each into a number of components relating to explicit and implicit experience. For instance, explicit representation of professional attitude in terms of communication with children is a psychologist’s self-assessment scale, and implicit representation is a degree of openness of cognitive position as willingness to solve problems. Explicit representation of psychologist’s professional competence is his/her work experience in his/her major (school psychologist), and implicit representation is reflexivity of cognitive style built by competent professionals. Professional learning for psychologists takes two forms: explicit learning, which is a conscious acquisition of knowledge and skills through trainings and seminars, and implicit learning, which is undirected, for example, through research and writing articles. It has turned out that explicit and implicit components of mental experience have a different effect on such parameters of psychologists’ parental competence as feedback efficiency, level of feedback detail and predictability of feedback usefulness. In other words, we have established that professional mental experience of psychologists may shape up their parental competence, making it both high and low. It is important to know that implicit (and often unconscious) components of mental experience have as much effect as its explicit components. We believe that study of implicit components of professional learning may contribute to improvement of psychologists’ professional training and development of a professional’s mature personality.

Teaching to Get Nurses an Midwives Empowering Women: Nursing Students’ Perceptions on Professional´s Roles during Perinatal Care

Female empowerment is a key concept in the current healthcare environment, especially in perinatal care. The educational process offered by universities to train future nurses and midwives has a great influence on their professional attitude and performance. To be able to educate in a way that encourages empowerment, it is essential for higher education institutions to know the starting point relating to students’ opinions on the subject. It was conducted a cross-sectional descriptive observational study, at the University of Huelva. It used a self-developed, semi-structured questionnaire, previously validated, to gather quantitative and qualitative data. A total of 117 nursing student were surveyed. Participants consider that general nurses supplement the work of the midwife and acts as a facilitator for the process of women’s empowerment in the perinatal period. They believe that the midwife is the professional figure of reference and the one in which they place greater trust. Improvement proposals for both types of professionals are based on improving training and resources. To encourage the development of the profession and improve the quality of care, it is essential to introduce features related to women’s empowerment in the undergraduate training of future nurses and midwives.

Professional subjectivity for student teachers in higher education

This study identifies and characterizes the features of the development of professional subjectivity of a future teacher in higher education. The research methodology is based on systemic and interdisciplinary approaches to education, poly-subject, object-subject, and environmental approaches. The author used theoretical methods (analysis, concretization and systematization of the characteristics of the teacher's subjectivity as a teacher in the indicated projections) and empirical methods (observation; focus groups with students of a pedagogical university studying at different levels and at different courses; methodology “I and others” by I. Nikolaeva). The study involved teachers of the Department of Social Pedagogy and students (n=52) of the Voronezh State Pedagogical University. It found that one of the leading differences in the subjective position of a teacher as educator is the need to integrate personal and professional subjectivity. This relies on coordination, and subsequently harmonizes individually significant and accepted value attitudes, cultural and subcultural preferences, norms and requirements. An attempt is made to analyze the projections of the teacher as an educator: into the socio-pedagogical environment - the educator as a sociocultural role and status; into a professional environment - as a separate professional function; into a personal environment - as a personal and professional attitude and position, which made it possible to clarify the peculiarities of the formation of professional subjectivity in the context of the development of the selected projections by the future teacher as an educator. The results confirm the need to work with the reference area of students as a condition for the success of professional education at the university, complementing the experience of solving the problems of self-education and education by a future teacher.

Secondary School Teachers’ Journey from Self-Efficacy to Collective Efficacy

Education is perceived as a powerful agency, which instrument in bringing about the desired changes in the social, economic and cultural life of any nation. The whole process of education is shaped and molded by the human personality called the teacher. Teaching is a challenging profession and only those teachers can shoulder the heavy responsibilities of nation building, who are adequately prepared and have sound professional attitude. Self-efficacy is belief of teachers about their own potential, skills, pedagogy, developing learning school environment while living within the limited resources. And when it turns to expectations of other stakeholders like principal, students, society as a collective capability of a group of teachers to influence student achievement is refers as collective teachers-efficacy. This study aimed at to highlight the relation and changing paradigms from teachers’ self-efficacy to collective-efficacy. To achieve the set aim, survey research technique was adopted. Southern Punjab was the population of the study and target was selected by adopting multistage random sampling technique. Equal opportunity was given to both genders. Total sample of the study was 480 (principals were 30, teachers 150, and students 300). Three different research tool were developed out of which first research tool was for knowing the teachers’ self-efficacy as Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) which was developed by Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy in 2001. Second research tool was of knowing the Collective Efficacy Scale (CE-Scale) developed by Goddard and Woolfolk Hoy (2004). Third research tool was Omnibus T-Scale (OTS) developed by Hoy in 2002. The analysis of the collected data was done by using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 21. Findings of the study shows that secondary school teachers are fully confident regarding their skills, competencies, pedagogy and ready to face the challenges. At the same time, their principals have shown strong trust on their teachers, but students’ opinion was different from the principals.

PP33 Lived experiences of paramedics across England during the COVID-19 outbreak; initial results. Poster Presentation

BackgroundParamedics are experiencing numerous policy and guideline changes in addition to facing enhanced risk of personal exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 outbreak offers an opportunity to capture the experiences of paramedics during substantial and rapid changes to workplace policy, guidelines, and professional roles in the healthcare system. To date, this ongoing study has captured a better understanding of the lived experiences of English paramedics.MethodData were collected through an online survey, consisting of QUAN +QUAL questions. The study, theoretically grounded in a phenomenological approach, employed inductive thematic analysis to code the data. QUAN answers were analysed using descriptive statistics and chi-square to test for association between demographic data and answers.ResultsA total of 34 survey responses from September – December 2020 have been received from across England, with the survey remaining open. Major themes to date have identified both professional and personal elements. There is a feeling of increased pressure related to public expectation, with noted increases in call volumes in some areas. There has been a change to the workforce and increased levels of sickness. The type and level of PPE as well as employer communication varies depending on the area respondents work in. Many participants also expressed increased stress, exhaustion and anxiety negatively impacting their mental health.ConclusionsEarly results confirm a need for paramedics to adapt professional approaches to overcome barriers presented by COVID-19. There appears to be a disparity in the amount of communication, PPE and support depending on the area worked in. Respondents are fatigued and worried about others, including families. Yet, there remains a clear professional attitude and commitment to providing care throughout the pandemic. The survey remains open with a comparison of data between Canada and England planned.

Improving health professionals’ and learners’ attitudes towards homeless individuals through street-based outreach

Objective: To identify the impact of volunteering in a street medicine programme on perceptions of and attitudes towards individuals experiencing homelessness. Design: Prospective pre- and post-analysis using involvement in a street medicine programme as the intervention. Attitudes towards and perceptions of individuals experiencing homelessness were measured using the Health Professional Attitude Towards the Homeless Inventory (HPATHI). Setting: Participants provided outreach to individuals experiencing homelessness across metro Phoenix in parks and in homeless encampments along the streets. Method: Students and preceptors from numerous professions, including medicine, nursing, social work, physical therapy, occupational therapy, public health and undergraduate students, who volunteered for the street medicine programme were organised into small outreach teams. All volunteers were emailed the HPATHI to complete before and after semester-long, monthly outreach events. Results: Volunteering in our street medicine programme demonstrated statistically significant improvements in perceptions of and attitudes towards individuals experiencing homelessness for all volunteers, regardless of profession. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that integrating street medicine programmes into curricula for health and social care programmes can reduce the stigma towards individuals experiencing homelessness, inspire increased commitment to practising in underserved communities and meet the unmet health and social needs of the homeless population.