The Mastery Rubric for Evidence-Based Medicine: Institutional Validation via Multidimensional Scaling.

Unlabelled: CONSTRUCT: In this study we describe a multidimensional scaling (MDS) exercise to validate the curricular elements composing a new Mastery Rubric (MR) for a curriculum in evidence-based medicine (EBM). This MR-EBM comprises 10 elements of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) representing our institutional learning goals of career-spanning engagement with EBM. An MR also includes developmental trajectories for each KSA, beginning with medical school coursework, including residency training, and outlining the qualifications of individuals to teach and mentor in EBM.

Multiple choice questions can be designed or revised to challenge learners' critical thinking.

Multiple choice (MC) questions from a graduate physiology course were evaluated by cognitive-psychology (but not physiology) experts, and analyzed statistically, in order to test the independence of content expertise and cognitive complexity ratings of MC items. Integration of higher order thinking into MC exams is important, but widely known to be challenging-perhaps especially when content experts must think like novices. Expertise in the domain (content) may actually impede the creation of higher-complexity items.

How informed is online informed consent?

We examined participants' reading and recall of informed consent documents presented via paper or computer. Within each presentation medium, we presented the document as a continuous or paginated document to simulate common computer and paper presentation formats. Participants took slightly longer to read paginated and computer informed consent documents and recalled slightly more information from the paginated documents.

Individual determinants of research utilization: a systematic review.

Context: In order to design interventions that increase research use in nursing, it is necessary to have an understanding of what influences research use.

Objective: To report findings on a systematic review of studies that examine individual characteristics of nurses and how they influence the utilization of research.

Search Strategy: A survey of published articles in English that examine the influence of individual factors on the research utilization behaviour of nurses, without restriction of the study design, from selected computerized databases and hand searches.