Attitudes of undergraduate nursing students toward Objective Structure Practical Examination: An Exploratory study

Background: Objective Structured Practical Examination (OSPE) is a method of assessment of clinical competence.The examination is conducted at multiple stations.Besides practical and problem-solving skills,theoretical knowledge is also tested.OSPE can be traced back more than 40 years.OSPE has been included more than two decades,as a part of assessment in the College of Nursing,All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS),New Delhi.Objectives: This study was carried out to determine nursing students' attitudes towards OSPE as an assessment tool.Participants: The responses of all the 252 Undergraduate nursing students studying at the College of Nursing,AIIMS were obtained for this study (77 from B.Sc.(H) Nursing first year,61 from the second year,69 from the third year and 45 from the fourth year).Methods: The students attitudes towards OSPE were assessed by using a validated questionnaire containing 28 item statements on Likert's 5-point scale (LS) and 11 bipolar adjectives on Osgood's 7-point Semantic'Differential Scale (OSDS).Result: Most of the students approved of OSPE and felt that it was fair,useful,good,effective,exciting,interesting,practical,skill oriented but also taxing.The study also revealed that amongst the second years' students there was a strong correlation between Overall Rank in the Class and Assessment of OSPE.Conclusion: The study supports the introduction of OSPE as one of the methods of assessment of B.Sc.(Hons.) Nursing students.

Attitudes of Nursing Faculty Members and Graduates towards the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE)

The aim of this study was to evaluate the attitudes of faculty and graduates of college of nursing towards Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) as a valid and reliable method of clinical competency assessment in nursing ten years after its inception. Core nursing courses are based on instructional teaching methods and “hands-on” approach to impact cognitive, psychomotor skills and clinical judgments. Different clinical competency assessment methods are used globally;however, most of them are subjective. A descriptive survey using 16-item five-point likert scale questionnaire was conducted. The study sample consisted of 140 participants: 20 faculty members, 27 graduates of the Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) Degree and 93 graduates of the Associate Degree of Nursing (ADN) programs with OSCE experience during their training. Data collection was carried out between October and November 2015. Eighty percent of faculty members, 74% of BSN and 62.3% of ADN graduates agreed that OSCE represented an objective evaluation method for psychomotor skills. Majority of the graduates perceived their OSCE experience positively although stressful. However, they have suggested the introduction of trial/mock OSCE prior to each exam to minimize the stress associated with it. In conclusion, there appears to be no single “gold-standard” assessment tool for clinical competency. OSCE assesses student nurses’ psychomotor skills in a non-clinical environment, therefore without risks to real patients. In combination with other assessment methods in the clinical settings, OSCE will provide a more comprehensive student psychomotor skill evaluation. OSCE experiences gave new nursing graduates confidence to work as registered nurses in health care settings.

Research on the Application of the OSCE Model in Vocational Nursing Comprehensive Practical Training

The objective of this study is to examine the application effect of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination(OSCE)model in the comprehensive practical training course for higher vocational nursing.Based on the evaluation dimensions of core nursing competencies,the OSCE framework was constructed with the clinical nursing work process as the main focus and supported by a nursing case database.A questionnaire survey revealed that over 80%of students in the experimental group were satisfied with the application of OSCE in the nursing comprehensive practical training course,and more than 90%believed that OSCE assessment enhanced their theoretical knowledge and practical skills.The OSCE was also considered helpful in transforming learned knowledge and skills into professional competencies.

Disruptive behavior in the workplace: Challenges for gastroenterology fellows

To assess first-year gastroenterology fellows’ ability to address difficult interpersonal situations in the workplace using objective structured clinical examinations (OSCE).METHODSTwo OSCEs (“distracted care team” and “frazzled intern”) were created to assess response to disruptive behavior. In case 1, a fellow used a colonoscopy simulator while interacting with a standardized patient (SP), nurse, and attending physician all played by actors. The nurse and attending were instructed to display specific disruptive behavior and disregard the fellow unless requested to stop the disruptive behavior and focus on the patient and procedure. In case 2, the fellow was to calm an intern managing a patient with massive gastrointestinal bleeding. The objective in both scenarios was to assess the fellows’ ability to perform their duties while managing the disruptive behavior displayed by the actor. The SPs used checklists to rate fellows’ performances. The fellows completed a self-assessment survey.RESULTSTwelve fellows from four gastrointestinal fellowship training programs participated in the OSCE. In the “distracted care team” case, one-third of the fellows interrupted the conflict and refocused attention to the patient. Half of the fellows were able to display professionalism despite the heated discussion nearby. Fellows scored lowest in the interprofessionalism portion of post-OSCE surveys, measuring their ability to handle the conflict. In the “frazzled intern” case, 68% of fellows were able to establish a calm and professional relationship with the SP. Despite this success, only half of the fellows were successfully communicate a plan to the SP and only a third scored “well done” in a domain that focused on allowing the intern to think through the case with the fellow’s guidance.CONCLUSIONFellows must receive training on how to approach disruptive behavior. OSCEs are a tool that can assess fellow skills and set a culture for open discussion.

GENERALIZED PROBABILISTIC PERTURBATION METHODFOR STATIC ANALYSIS

The static response and reliability of uncertain structures with vector-valued and matrix-valued functions were studied, and the finite element analysis method for the uncertain structures was derived based on the Kronecker algebra and perturbation theory. The random variables and system derivatives can then be conveniently arranged into the 2-D matrices, and the generalized mathematical formulas for the probabilistic perturbation were obtained.

Development of a distribution management system in refinery industry

Developing an information system for managing the product distribution in a refinery demands sophisticated design solutions. First, organization models are created to describe the structural relationships among employees and the ways in which they will use the information system. Second, function models are created to hierarchically describe how sales, transports, deliveries and vehicles are managed. Thirdly, an information model is built to represent the data entities and their dynamic interactions. Based on the system design, a distribution management system is developed and implemented in a refinery, which has considerably increased the distribution management efficiency and effectiveness.

Objectives and Structure Officially Defined

The readjusted objectives and structure of the departments responsible for auto industries management of the State Administration of Ma-chinery Industry (SAMI) which is located in Beijing has officially been defined as follows. ●Objectives of Div. of Auto Industry Planning under Dept. of Planning and Develop-ment of SAMI ——Working out development strategies, en-

Local structured representation for generic object detection

Structure information plays an important role in both object recognition and detection. This paper studies what visual structure is and addresses the problem of struc- ture modeling and representation from two aspects： visual feature and topology model. Firstly, at feature level, we pro- pose Local Structured Descriptor to capture the object＇s local structure effectively, and develop the descriptors from shape and texture information, respectively. Secondly, at topology level, we present a local strnctured model with a boosted fea- ture selection and fusion scheme. All experiments are conducted on the challenging PASCAL Visual Object Classes （VOC） datasets from VOC2007 to VOC2010. Experimental results show that our method achieves very competitive performance.

NUMERICAL STUDY OF 3D EXPLOSION BUBBLES ADJACENT TO STRUCTURES

The bejavior of a bubble near a rigid structure was considered by using the local surface fitting method and the jet prediction method. The convergence difficulty caused by the abnormality of the elements was overcome. The flow was numerically simulated by using the boundary-integral method on the assumption that the water was inviscid and incompressible, and the bubble gas obeyed the isentropic rule. The evolution of the bubble was investigated by means of the mixed Euler-Lagrange method, and the Runge-Kutta method. The important behavior of the bubble, such as migration and jetting, was analyzed in several examples. The solution of one period of the explosion bubble was obtained.

An ERP Study on the Processing of Chinese Applied-Object Structures

Verb-argument relation is a very important aspect of syntax-semantics interaction in sentence processing. Previous ERP （event related potentials） studies in this field concentrated on the relation between the verb and its core arguments. The present study aims to reveal the ERP pattern of Chinese applied object structures （AOSs）, in which a peripheral argument is promoted to occupy the position of the patient object, as compared with the patient object structures （POSs）. The ERP data were collected when participants were asked to perform acceptability judgments about Chinese phrases. The result shows that, similar to the previous studies of number-of-argument violations, Chinese AOSs show a bilaterally distributed N400 effect. But different from all the previous studies of verb-argument relations, Chinese AOSs demonstrate a sustained anterior positivity （SAP）. This SAP, which is very rare in the studies related to complexity of argument structure operation, reflects the integration difficulty of the newly promoted arguments and the progressive nature of well-formedness checking in the processing of Chinese AOSs which is in accordance with the metonymic mechanism of non- patient objects in the relevant cognitive study. It shows that, in Chinese, which is a paratactic language, semantics （thematic roles） plays a more important role in the syntax-semantics interface than that in hypotactic languages.