One method of grading responses of the descriptive type is by using Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy. The basis of this study was the expectation that if students were oriented to SOLO taxonomy, it would provide them an opportunity to understand some of the factors that teachers consider while grading descriptive responses and possibly develop strategies to improve scores. We first sampled the perceptions of 68 second-year undergraduate medical students doing the Respiratory System course regarding the usefulness of explicit discussion of SOLO taxonomy. Subsequently, in a distinct cohort of 20 second-year medical students doing the Central Nervous System course, we sought to determine whether explicit illustration of SOLO taxonomy combined with some advice on better answering descriptive test questions (to an experimental group) resulted in better student scores in a continuous assessment test compared with providing advice for better answering test questions but without any reference to SOLO taxonomy (the control group). Student ratings of the clarity of the presentation on SOLO taxonomy appeared satisfactory to the authors, as was student understanding of our presentation. The majority of participants indicated that knowledge of SOLO taxonomy would help them study and prepare better answers for questions of the descriptive type. Although scores in the experimental and control group were comparable, this experience nonetheless provided us with the motivation to orient students to SOLO taxonomy early on in the medical program and further research factors that affect students' development of strategies based on knowledge of SOLO taxonomy.
The aim of our study was to investigate the intra- and interspecific agonistic behaviors exhibited by the worker and soldier castes of the subterranean termite Microcerotermes crassus Snyder (Isoptera: Termitidae). Aggression between M. crassus colonies from different field locations and also against three termite species--Coptotermes gestroi (Wasmann), Globitermnes sulphureus Haviland, and Odontotermes sp.--were observed in the laboratory. Termite responses were tested in paired combination of castes (soldiers versus soldiers, soldiers versus workers, and workers versus workers) consisting of 10 individuals each. Significant agonistic behaviors were observed only in encounters between pairings of different termite species. M. crassus was aggressive toward individuals from different species but not toward individuals from different M. crassus colonies. Mortality of M. crassus reached 100% in most of the interspecific encounters. However, no or low mortality was recorded in the intraspecific pairings.
Case-based learning (CBL) is an interactive student-centered exploration of real life situations. This paper describes the use of CBL as an educational strategy for promoting active learning in microbiology.
In the current study we evaluated adverse effects of monosodium glutamate (MSG) on memory formation and its retrieval as well as the role of ascorbic acid (Vitamin-C) in prevention of MSG-induced alteration of neurobehavioral performance in periadolescent rats.
Previous researches on elementary grade handwriting revealed that pupils employ certain strategy when writing or drawing. The relationship between this strategy and the use of graphic rules has been documented but very little research has been devoted to the connection between the use of graphic rules and handwriting proficiency. Thus, this study was conducted to investigate the relative contribution of the use of graphic rules to the writing ability. A sample of 105 first graders who were average printers and 65 first graders who might experience handwriting difficulty, as judged by their teachers, of a normal primary school were individually tested on their use of graphic rules. It has been found that pupils who are below average printers use more non-analytic strategy than average printers to reproduce the figures. The results also reveal that below average printers do not acquire the graphic principles that foster an analytic approach to production skills. Although the findings are not sufficient to allow definitive conclusions about handwriting ability, it can be considered as one of the screening measures in identifying pupils who are at risk of handwriting difficulties.
Studies have shown that differences between children with and without handwriting difficulties lie not only in the written product (static data) but also in dynamic data of handwriting process. Since writing system varies among countries and individuals, this study was conducted to determine the feasibility of using quantitative outcome measures of children's drawing to identify children who are at risk of handwriting difficulties. A sample of 143 first graders of a normal primary school was investigated regarding their handwriting ability. The children were divided into two groups: test and control. Ten children from test group and 40 children from control group were individually tested for their Visual Motor Integration skills. Analysis on dynamic data indicated significant differences between the two groups in temporal and spatial measures of the drawing task performance. Thus, kinematic analysis of children's drawing is feasible to provide performance characteristic of handwriting ability, supporting its use in screening for handwriting difficulty.
Introduction: Nowadays, there is a worldwide trend for universities to utilize the benefits of e-learning as a mechanism to facilitate improvements in teaching and learning. Purpose: The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of using e-learning in the teaching of fixed prosthodontic course i.e. FPeL.
Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective analysis of questionnaire data, collected from fourth and fifth year dental undergraduates at the Faculty of Dentistry, National University of Malaysia (Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, UKM). For fixed prosthodontics (FP), all students had received a series of traditional classroom lectures, seminars, video demonstration, preclinical and Fixed Prosthodontics e-Learning or FPeL in semester 1 and 2 during their 4th year. The questionnaire of 4 sections was administered after the students completed fixed prosthodontics course.
Results: Questionnaires were returned by 136 students (80.9% response rate). Unfortunately, the response rate dropped 12.4% when only 115 students accessed and used the FPeL (68.5%). Majority of FPeL users felt PFeL was beneficial to their learning in the fixed prosthodontic course. PFeL users recommended printable version with detailed explanations, illustrated with more photos and with addition of references.
Conclusions: PFeL assisted users in the learning process of fixed prosthodontics.
Objective: This review paper will be discussing on mental health of children and adolescents in Malaysia. Behavioural problems, academic failure and underachievement in school are common reasons for referral of children to the medical services. Epidemiological research has substantiated a possible seriously mismatch between the rates of child mental health problems across a broad spectrum and the number of children actually referred to existing services. These data suggest it is imperative in Malaysia to empirically investigate the present realities in the schools in regard to special education needs and their neglect. Methods: The present preliminary study is based on a literature review of epidemiological features of learning disorders and comorbidities using the Cochran library key word search. Available statistics for learning disorders from the WHO are compared with records for the
year 2007 from the Ministry of Education in Malaysia. Results: Findings of this comparison with international prevalence rates of learning disorders and related diseases show a sizable gap between real existing needs in Malaysia, and their perception. Based on quantitative estimates, the findings suggest that some 1.4 million children in Malaysia have mental health difficulties that interfere with normal functioning and development, but adequate services for intervention are largely not available. Conclusion: The present undersupply of adequate service for children with learning difficulties is aggravated by the lack of systematic developmental screening in early childhood in Malaysia. This status affects the outcomes and development of the general education system in efforts to meet challenges in the new century.
Objective: Postgraduate medical training has always been regarded as a highly stressful environment to students. This article described an initial finding on prevalence and sources of stress among postgraduate students. Method: This is a cross-sectional study conducted on postgraduate students in the School of Medical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia. Sample size as calculated for this preliminary study was 38 and convenient sampling method was applied. The 12 items General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and Postgraduate Stressors Questionnaire (PSQ) were administered during a workshop involving postgraduate students. Data was analysed using SPSS version 12. Results: Thirty three participants participated in this study. This study found that the prevalence of distressed postgraduate students was 36.4%. The top ten stressors were tests and examinations, large amount of content to be learnt, time pressure to meet deadlines, doing work beyond
ability, work overload, unfair assessment by superior, fears of making mistakes that can lead to serious consequences, doing work that mentally straining, work demands affect my personal and home life, and lack of time to review what have been learnt. Conclusion: This study found that there was a high prevalence of distressed postgraduate students. It also found that the major stressors were related to academic and performance pressure.
This paper discusses the evolution of PSR development for people with severe mental illness since the early 20th century in Malaysia. The various aspects of PSR include the activities, service target, the treatment settings, factors contributed to the development and the challenges that have been faced are also described along with the evolution, comparing the past and
present. It is learned that despite of many challenges, PSR in Malaysia has now continued to progress with increasing supports from the stakeholders and is in keeping with the current PSR concept.
In this paper, a new method known as Grid Base Classifier was proposed. This method carries the advantages of the two previous methods in order to improve the classification tasks. The problem with the current lazy algorithms is that they learn quickly, but classify very slowly. On the other hand, the eager algorithms classify quickly, but they learn very slowly. The two algorithms were compared, and the proposed algorithm was found to be able to both learn and classify quickly. The method was developed based on the grid structure which was done to create a powerful method for classification. In the current research, the new algorithm was tested and applied to the multiclass classification of two or more categories, which are important for handling problems related to practical classification. The new method was also compared with the Levenberg-Marquardt back-propagation neural network in the learning stage and the Condensed nearest neighbour in the generalization stage to examine the performance of the model. The results from the artificial and real-world data sets (from UCI Repository) showed that the new method could improve both the efficiency and accuracy of pattern classification.
This study aims to determine the prevalence of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) among schizophrenic patients and the association of this condition with clinical and selected neurocognitive factors. This is a cross sectional study on one hundred schizophrenic patients who attended psychiatric clinic in National University Hospital and Kuala Lumpur Hospital over a four-months period. All patients diagnosed as schizophrenia according to DSM 1V were assessed using Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) Version 5 for the presence of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Brief Psychiatric rating Scale (BPRS) for severity of psychosis and Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (YBOCS) for severity of obsessive compulsive (OC) symptoms. Socio-demographic data were obtained by direct interview. The neurocognitive assessment were done using Mini Mental State Examination , Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT) and Digit Span. Fifteen percent of schizophrenic patients (15%) in this sample were found to have a diagnosis of Obsessive compulsive Disorder (OCD). The OCD and non-OCD schizophrenic patients did not differ significantly in term of age ,gender, race and family history of mental illness. However they differ significantly on employment, type of treatment medication and the presence or severity of current psychosis. Schizophrenic patients with OCD also showed no significant different in selected neurocognitive functions.
Introduction: Non-verbal cues are untold words that carry a significant meaning. As a doctor, this remark needs to be perceived correctly. It is an inevitable communication knowledge and skills ought to be mastered in any doctorpatient relationship, particularly when making patient’s assessment.
Methodology: This was a systematic communication assessment of a real observations on doctor-patient relationship in various setting. It was supported by feedbacks from many scholars who were involved in research and teaching and also reviews, papers and studies on the said subject.
Results: It has been realized that non-verbal communication was equally important and necessary to complement the verbal one. From all non-verbal cues we have recognized and listed, we have identified at least ten to be the most vital areas to be observed while counseling or consulting a patient.
Conclusion: Non-verbal cues were always present to support doctor in making a final conclusion about his/her patient’s state. If doctor was patience enough, he or she could has a complete profile of his/her patient and this would lead to the improvement in a person’s life. Having an observant attitude and being able to nose around appropriately were skills that have to be learnt, experienced and applied as these might make an effective doctor-patient communication.
Background: Problem based learning (PBL) is a student-centered curriculum delivery tool believed to promote active student participation. Though the PBL is student-centered, the facilitator plays an important role in maintaining the integrity of this system by providing balance in group interaction and discussion of learning issues. In International Medical University (IMU) one of the strategies to ensure the quality of the facilitators was the pre and post PBL meetings. This study aimed to gauge its usefulness in ensuring the quality of PBL facilitation.
Method: The questionnaire to study the perceptions of PBL facilitators on the pre and post PBL meetings included close ended questions on pre and post PBL meeting’s attendance and their scored opinion in improving PBL facilitation skills, open ended questions inviting suggestions to improve these meetings and PBL facilitation in IMU as a whole and self-evaluation as an effective PBL facilitator using a six point Likert scale to a list of statements.
Results: 84.2% of facilitators agreed the meetings were beneficial. Self-evaluation of their facilitator effectiveness showed on average ratings of seven out of ten indicating strong confidence in facilitating skills. Suggestions ensuring facilitator quality included content expert briefing in pre PBL meetings and student appraisals of facilitators given weightage in staff appraisal.
Conclusion: Pre and post PBL meetings enhanced facilitator comfort with the triggers, adding to their confidence and provided a venue to obtain feedback on the triggers.
Appreciation of learning styles can be of use to help both educators and students to enhance the effectiveness of an educational experience. It has been noticed that some students at this College are not very good at expressing themselves in either written or spoken English. Our study aimed to identify the student’s learning styles; assess whether there is any correlation between learning style, baseline demographic data and self rated proficiency in English language; and assess their associations with the assessment performance.
A group of third year medical students voluntarily participated in a questionnaire study to provide us with their learning styles, demographic information and self-rated proficiency in English language. This data was compared to the students’ performance in the assessment at the end of their junior clinical rotations.
This cohort of students (60% Malay, 35% Chinese and 5% Indian) who were mostly visual learners, considered themselves proficient in English. Students with predominantly Visual learning styles and those with poorer English, score significantly lower during their clinical long case examinations. These two predictors appear to be independent of each other.
These results may suggest that our current teaching modalities may disadvantage students with predominant visual learning styles. It also suggests that the long case clinical examination may favour those with more verbal learning styles.
Health promotion (HP) is the process of enabling people to increase control over the determinants of health and thereby improve their health. It is the corner stone in prevention of diseases and shifting the responsibilities of health care from health care provider into the community where the patient centered approach is an appropriate setting by offering continuous, coordinated and comprehensive care throughout the patient’s family and community. The Faculty of Medicine, University technology MARA has adopted dynamic approach in designing the curriculum to respond to the needs of this rapidly changing socioeconomic paradigm of the country, so that the graduates will be able to address the needs of their country and communities. Population health and preventive medicine component was included in the newly designed problem based curriculum, in which the student is introduced to the concepts of epidemiology, disease prevention, statistical analysis and community research. Health promotion program is part and parcel of population health and preventive medicine; it is incorporated with community health research in a course of four weeks of Year Four Medical Curriculum. The aim of this paper is to describe the rationales of health promotion program in medical curriculum, and critically review the components and methods of implementation.
Coriandrum sativum L., commonly known as coriander and belonging to the family Apiaceae (Umbelliferae), is cultivated throughout the world for its nutritional value. The present study was undertaken to investigate the effects of fresh Coriandrum sativum leaves (CSL) on cognitive functions, total serum cholesterol levels and brain cholinesterase activity in mice. In this study, CSL (5, 10 and 15% w/w of diet) was fed orally with a specially prepared diet for 45 days consecutively to experimental animals. Elevated plus-maze and passive avoidance apparatus served as the exteroceptive behavioral models for testing memory. Diazepam, scopolamine and ageing-induced amnesia served as the interoceptive behavioral models.
Malay is a consistent alphabetic orthography with complex syllable structures. The focus of this research was to investigate word recognition performance in order to inform reading interventions for low-progress early readers. Forty-six Grade 1 students were sampled and 11 were identified as low-progress readers. The results indicated that both syllable awareness and phoneme blending were significant predictors of word recognition, suggesting that both syllable and phonemic grain-sizes are important in Malay word recognition. Item analysis revealed a hierarchical pattern of difficulty based on the syllable and the phonic structure of the words. Error analysis identified the sources of errors to be errors due to inefficient syllable segmentation, oversimplification of syllables, insufficient grapheme-phoneme knowledge and inefficient phonemic code assembly. Evidence also suggests that direct instruction in syllable segmentation, phonemic awareness and grapheme-phoneme correspondence is necessary for low-progress readers to acquire word recognition skills. Finally, a logical sequence to teach grapheme-phoneme decoding in Malay is suggested.
This paper presents our experience of running a special study module (SSM) in the second semester of the first year of our 5-year medical programme, worth 10 per cent of that semester's assessment, in which each student constructs an individually selected model illustrating a specific aspect of the teaching course.