An Exploration of Doctor of Physical Therapy Students' Belongingness in Clinical Education: A Validation Study.

Introduction: The aim of this study was to adapt and validate the Belongingness Scale-Clinical Placement Experience (BES-CPE) for Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students in the United States.

Review Of Literature: Belongingness is vital to one's mental, emotional, and physical health. Research has shown that belongingness is positively correlated with students' academic performance and achievement.

Design and Evaluation of an Interprofessional Preceptor Development Mini-Fellowship Program.

Introduction: Health professions preceptors require skills and knowledge to effectively meet the educational needs of interprofessional students in clinical environments. We implemented a mini-fellowship program to enhance the knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy of preceptors teaching students and applying quality improvement (QI) methods across disciplines and patient care settings.

Methods: The design, implementation, and evaluation of the program were informed by the faculty development literature, principles of adult learning, and preceptor needs.

Do Physician Assistant Students Use Retrieval-Based Strategies While Studying?

Introduction: Research on learning indicates that active retrieval of information (ie, testing) enhances student retention of knowledge, yet, it is underutilized by learners. This research investigated physician assistant (PA) students' study strategies and the extent to which retrieval-based strategies (RBS) are used.

Methods: A survey instrument adapting items from Hartwig and Dunlosky's Study Habits Survey was administered to first-year PA students to investigate their study behaviors over a 4-week time frame in preparation for multiple-choice exams.

Validation of a Novel Statistical Method to Identify Aberrant Patient Logging: A Multi-Institutional Study.

Introduction: Student patient encounter logging informs the quality of supervised clinical practice experiences (SCPEs). Yet, it is unknown whether logs accurately reflect patient encounters, and the faculty resources necessary to review for potential aberrant logging are significant. The purpose of this study was to identify a statistical method to identify aberrant logging.

Perceived Benefits of Training Clinicians in Community Engagement for a Leadership Development Program.

Background And Objectives: Community engagement (CE), including community-engaged research, is a critical tool for improving the health of patients and communities, but is not taught in most medical curricula, and is even rarer in leadership training for practicing clinicians. With the growth of value-based care and increasing concern for health equity, we need to turn our attention to the benefits of working with communities to improve health and health care. The objective of this brief report is to increase understanding of the perceived benefits of CE training for primary care clinicians, specifically those already working.

Considerations Around Predicting Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam Scores From PACKRAT®: A Multiprogram Study.

Purpose: The Physician Assistant Clinical Knowledge Rating and Assessment Tool (PACKRAT®) is a known predictor of performance on the Physician Assistant National Certifying Exam (PANCE). It is unknown, however, whether these associations (1) vary across programs; (2) differ by PACKRAT metrics (first-year [PACKRAT 1], second-year [PACKRAT 2], and composite score [arithmetic mean of PACKRAT 1 and PACKRAT 2]); or (3) are modified by demographic or socioeconomic variables.

Methods: Linear and logistic hierarchical regression models (HRMs) were used to evaluate associations between PACKRAT metrics and (1) continuous PANCE scores and (2) odds of low PANCE performance (LPP), respectively.

Use of design effects and sample weights in complex health survey data: a review of published articles using data from 3 commonly used adolescent health surveys.

Objectives: We assessed how frequently researchers reported the use of statistical techniques that take into account the complex sampling structure of survey data and sample weights in published peer-reviewed articles using data from 3 commonly used adolescent health surveys.

Methods: We performed a systematic review of 1003 published empirical research articles from 1995 to 2010 that used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n=765), Monitoring the Future (n=146), or Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (n=92) indexed in ERIC, PsycINFO, PubMed, and Web of Science.

Results: Across the data sources, 60% of articles reported accounting for design effects and 61% reported using sample weights.

Making treatment effect inferences from multiple-baseline data: the utility of multilevel modeling approaches.

Multiple-baseline studies are prevalent in behavioral research, but questions remain about how to best analyze the resulting data. Monte Carlo methods were used to examine the utility of multilevel models for multiple-baseline data under conditions that varied in the number of participants, number of repeated observations per participant, variance in baseline levels, variance in treatment effects, and amount of autocorrelation in the Level 1 errors. Interval estimates of the average treatment effect were examined for two specifications of the Level 1 error structure (sigma(2)I and first-order autoregressive) and for five different methods of estimating the degrees of freedom (containment, residual, between-within, Satterthwaite, and Kenward-Roger).