Factors affecting test anxiety: a qualitative analysis of medical students’ views

Background Medical students are vulnerable to test anxiety (TA), which impacts their professional lives and jeopardizes the optimal health care of their patients. The qualitative exploration of TA among medical students is crucial to understanding the problem. Hence, this study examined medical students’ insights into TA and their suggestions on how to reduce it. Methods We conducted a phenomenological study on medical students at a public university. We utilized focus group discussions (FGDs) to investigate their experiences of TA. The FGDs were transcribed verbatim, and these transcripts were analyzed using Atlas.ti software. The thematic analysis followed the recommended guidelines. Results Seven FGD sessions were conducted with 45 students. Three major themes emerged: the students, their academic resources, and the examiner. Each theme comprised mutually exclusive subthemes. The “students” theme was divided into negative vs. positive thoughts and self-negligence vs. self-care, “academic recources” into heavy curriculum vs. facilitative curricular aids, and “examiner” into criticism vs. feedback and strict vs. kind approaches. Conclusion This study provides a solid foundation for policymakers and decision makers in medical education to improve current assessment practices and student well-being. Medical students will be able to significantly alter and reduce TA if they are provided with additional psychological support and their examiners are trained on how to deal with examinees.

Nurses Perceptions regarding Current Skills in Minimizing Patient Aggression at a selected Psychiatric hospital in Lesotho

Background: Meta-analysis of international literature indicate high frequencies of aggression in a mental health setting. Several studies indicate that among professional health workers, nurses are more likely than other staff members to experience aggressive incidences from patients. Furthermore, based on cause, nurses apply a range of interventions in managing aggression, however, despite the perceived value of their intervention in managing aggression, no single intervention is sufficient for handling aggressive patients to stay in control in wards. Despite high priority placed on patient aggression management, insufficient research studies have been conducted on nurses perceptions regarding current skills in minimizing patient aggression. Objectives: The purpose of the study was to describe nurses perceptions regarding current assessment skills in minimizing patient aggression at a selected Psychiatric hospital. Methodology: Non-experimental, exploratory, descriptive research design was used to guide the research process. An all-inclusive sampling method was used with 119 nurses as respondents. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire, analyzed using SPSS version 25. Descriptive statistics procedure was used to present the findings of the study. Results: A minority of respondents, (n=27) 22.7% agreed that their current assessment skills for minimizing patients aggression were good compared to the majority of respondents, (n=92) 77.3%, who expressed a different opinion. This suggests that there are limited current assessment skills in identifying high-risk aggressive patients in a selected Psychiatric hospital. Conclusion: The findings of the study indicate that there are limited current assessment skills in minimizing patients aggression at selected Psychiatric hospital. Therefore, there is a need to provide comprehensive information on nurses current skills in minimizing patients aggression to obtain richer information.

Redesigning Deficit-Laden Assessments for Neurodivergent Students

In this chapter, the authors deconstruct the deficit views inherent in special education assessment wherein marginalized, neurodivergent students receive stigmatizing labels and are often deprived of opportunities for quality instruction. The authors examine how eligibility criteria based on deficit views of disability are culturally biased and scientifically invalid. Then, the deficit perspective of Individualized Education Programs are analyzed to demonstrate how neurodivergent students and their families are isolated and objectified through this legal process. Lastly, as an alternative to the current assessment system, universally designed assessment is recommended to provide more accessible and flexible platforms for demonstrating students' knowledge and skills and to restore the lost connection between assessments and daily instruction.

Using Screen-Capture Technology to Authenticate IT Online Learning and Assessment

Assessment has always been fundamental to teaching as it aims to gauge the impact of the teaching on students learning. The current assessment in teaching computer literacy is objective assessment that focuses on making it intentional, informative, and formalized. Although this assessment is the best way when assessing large groups of students at one limited time, it has a drawback of being limited to check the knowledge of understanding terminology and recalling steps of a particular process. This study introduces a screen-capture technology based approach to performative and authentic assessment. It involved design and implementation of screen-capture assignments to assess computer maintenance skills. The sample consisted of 28 students enrolled in computer hardware and software maintenance classes. Data from students was collected through a multi-modal student survey and a semi-structured interview. The results analysis has indicated that screen-capture performative assessment promotes students’ engagement and learning level of solving real-world problems.

Modeling of the comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of economic entities: Management aspect

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented structural change in the current evolutionary development of the national economy of Ukraine. Situational trends that arise in the open economy of the country require reactive changes in the conditions for doing business and force public authorities to update strategies or mechanisms to support it. At the same time, a number of explicit factors, including unemployment and inflation, further exacerbate the problems in business activities. This makes it necessary to search for relevant methods that would allow interested stakeholders to carry out uninterrupted diagnostics of the state of entrepreneurship development and, on this basis, determine effective government policy tools to support this sector of the economy. Important management measures are the current assessment of the business sector, determination of its future development, and forecasting the consequences of the impact of the external environment on the activities of enterprises. At the same time, the updated methods should take into account the evolution of the development of the national economy and the specifics of the modern activities of large, medium, and small enterprises in Ukraine. The purpose of the article is to develop a relevant methodology for assessing the current activities of business entities in the managerial aspect, as well as modeling the forecast for the development of this sector of the economy, taking into account the specifics of the functioning of the national economy of Ukraine. The use of the methodology proposed by the authors will make it possible to systematically assess the current state of entrepreneurship development and respond in advance to negative factors that cause its inert development.

Methodic for evaluating the performance of a continuous welded track according to the criterion of compliance of the actual rail fastening temperature with the standardized value

Problem of safety evaluation of continuous welded track operation is considered. A comparative analysis of the current assessment methods is carried out and a method is proposed for identifying dangerous track sections according to the criterion of compliance of the actual rail fastening temperature with the standardized one. Under the actual fxing temperature in the article, the temperature of the rail is taken at which, as a result of its thermal expansion or contraction, a zero value of the longitudinal force is formed in it. A method is presented for calculating the actual temperature of rail fastening using the dependence of the natural frequency of rail vibrations on the applied longitudinal force, which was obtained by the computational method using the fnite element model of the track section created by the authors by means of modal calculations for various values of the longitudinal force applied to the rail. Its verifcation was carried out using experimental data obtained as a result of testing at a specialized stand. The method of tests carried out on the stand and section of the continuous track of the Ozerskaya branch of the Moscow Railway is described, which consists in determining the natural frequency of the first mode of rail vibration at different values of the longitudinal force, and in the case of field tests at different values of the rail temperature. The calculation of the actual temperature of rail fastening is given on the example of a section of a continuous-welded track of the Ozerskaya branch of the Moscow railway. It was found that the temperature of rail fastening on the investigated section corresponds to the normative for the given region.

A Comprehensive Approach to Assessment of Testamentary Capacity

The growing aging population raises important implications for legal and clinical systems, including testamentary capacity (TC) assessment. Yet, there are limited comprehensive and standardized assessment measures for TC readily available for clinical use. A review of current assessment methods and standardized approaches for TC assessment is provided. Although several guidelines regarding TC assessment have been proposed in prior literature, existing standardized approaches do not appear to meet full criteria for TC. A comprehensive approach to assessment of testamentary capacity is proposed.

A New Risk Assessment Model to Check Safety Threats to Long-Distance Pipelines

With the number of long-distance pipelines increasing in China, risk management has become important for controlling pipeline leakage. However, all the current assessment technologies are semi-quantitative and do not include inspection data. To address this problem, a new quantitative risk assessment model is proposed to guide decision-making on excavation inspection and maintenance. Based on previous failure cases, the model includes data about the surrounding soils as well as about the pipeline's protective layer, cathodic protection and thickness readings. Testing of the proposed model on previous failure cases shows that the new model can correctly assess the real leakage risk of a long-distance pipeline and support the quantitative integrity management of a long-distance pipeline during its whole service life.

Comprehensive assessment of the citizen wellbeing in the territory of residence: taking into account the changing influence of indicators economic security

The article considers a generalizing characteristic of the citizen's wellbeing in the territory of residence, assesses indicators based on statistical data, and makes adjustments due to safety indicators. The author's diagnostic technique was used, which includes corrective indicators. For this purpose, the method of express diagnostics was applied, which made it possible to select the 8 most significant from 12 modules and 43 indicators of economic security. The rate of change of each of the 8 indicators was taken into account, which made it possible to determine the changes in these indicators and the predisposition to one degree or another of the socio-economic crisis. A change in the trend of an indicator can lead to the opposite effect at the expense of other main influencing indexes. This takes into account the borderline state of the indicator, namely, its rate of growth or decline and predisposition to a particular crisis zone. The turning zones of the trend of changes in indicators have been determined. The object of the research is the well-being of the individual in the territory of residence for each subject of the Ural Federal District. The authors made an attempt to consider in the analysis not just the population of the subject (the number of people), but also to assess the personality from the standpoint of moral development, the level of education, the available opportunities for spiritual development, the provision of benefits necessary to maintain life and the degree of satisfaction of the needs of the population. This will allow to carry out the current analysis of the state, but also to consider the forecast dynamics of change for the next 2 to 3 years. The results obtained can be used in the current assessment of the socio-economic situation in the regions of Russia, as well as in planning and forecasting individual indicators of individual citizen wellbeing in the territory of residence