Browsing by Subject "Instrument"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Development of a novel instrument to evaluate interdisciplinary problem-solving skills of Chemistry and Biochemistry Majors.
    (2021-07) Jayathilaka, Adeesha
    Real-world applications of science are often interdisciplinary, involving overlapping concepts from multiple STEM fields. However, undergraduates majoring in science learn these concepts in separate courses, one for each field, and their performance is then evaluated by asking them to solve problems in each subdiscipline separately. This approach is often not effective in explicitly relating the subdisciplines of STEM to interdisciplinary applications in industry or academic research. Therefore, our siloed approach to teaching and evaluating STEM students leave us with an unassessed, but very important question: How well can STEM graduates solve problems at the intersections between STEM subfields? To begin addressing this question, we first turn to the intersections and interdisciplinary problems that exist within our own field: Chemistry and Biochemistry. To assess students’ interdisciplinary problem-solving skills among the subdisciplines of chemistry, we have developed a novel instrument: Interdisciplinary Problem-Solving Quiz (IPSQ). Each item in the instrument is designed so that it requires understanding in principles of multiple branches of chemistry and utilizes problem-solving skills necessary in real-world applications and research. To confirm the validity of the instrument, four validation studies were conducted. Feedback obtained from validation studies was used to optimize the instrument. During the scope of the study, content validation and face validation were achieved. Further validation studies are recommended to achieve the construct validation of the IPSQ. It is anticipated to administer the validated instrument on graduating seniors, gather information to interpret the output of undergraduate chemistry education, and introduce appropriate reforms to the undergraduate curriculum.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    InCISE: Instrument for Comprehensive Incisional and Surgical Evaluation. The development of a wound healing score for comprehensive, objective assessment of head and neck surgery wound healing
    (2018-10) Lassig, Amy Anne
    Objective / Hypothesis: The evaluation of healing after head and neck surgery is currently qualitative and non-standardized, limiting the quality of surgical healing assessments in clinical and research settings. We sought to develop an objective, standardized wound assessment score and hypothesize that a reliable instrument can be developed to evaluate head and neck surgical wounds. Study type / Design: Prospective cohort study Methods: A prospective cohort study was conducted in a tertiary-care, academic head and neck surgery practice. Patients undergoing head and neck surgery were enrolled and a digital photograph protocol was developed for evaluating healing surgical wounds. A panel of experts undertook the steps of developing a wound healing score and establishing reliability of the score. Results: InCISE: Instrument for comprehensive incisional and surgical evaluation was created. The utility of our wound healing score was assessed using classical test theory. We performed the major steps of establishing reliability: 1. internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.78), 2. inter-observer reliability (intra-class correlation = 0.64), and 3.intra-rater reliability (intra-class correlation = 0.72) and content validity (through focus groups). Our composite measure was found to have strong internal consistency, moderate inter-rater reliability, and strong intra-rater reliability. Conclusions: A wound healing score for head and neck surgery, InCISE, can be developed and is reliable. While content validity is present, additional work continues to establish criterion validity in this instrument in order to allow for clinical and research use.