Students in health care professional programs face many stressful tests that determine successful completion of their program. Test anxiety during these high stakes examinations can affect working memory and lead to poor outcomes. Methods of decreasing test anxiety include lengthening the time available to complete examinations or evaluating students using untimed examinations. There is currently no consensus in the literature regarding whether untimed examinations provide a benefit to test performance in clinical anatomy. This study aimed to determine the impact of timed versus untimed practical tests on Master of Physical Therapy student anatomy performance and test anxiety. Test anxiety was measured using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Differences in performance, anxiety scores, and time taken were compared using paired sample Student's t-tests. Eighty-one of the 84 students completed the study and provided feedback. Students performed significantly higher on the untimed test (P = 0.005), with a significant reduction in test anxiety (P < 0.001). Students who were unsuccessful on the timed test showed the greatest improvement on the untimed test ( x¯ = 20.4 ±10%). Eighty-three percent (n = 69) of students preferred the untimed test, 8.4% (n = 7) the timed test, and 8.4% (n = 7) had no preference. Students took on average eight minutes longer on the untimed test. This study found that physical therapy students perform better on untimed tests, which may be related to a reduction in test anxiety. If the intended goal of evaluating health care professional students is to determine fundamental competencies, these factors should be considered when designing future curricula.
Introduction: While wideband segmented, breath-hold late gadolinium-enhancement (LGE) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) has been shown to suppress image artifacts associated with cardiac-implanted electronic devices (CIEDs), it may produce image artifacts in patients with arrhythmia and/or dyspnea. Single-shot LGE is capable of suppressing said artifacts. We sought to compare the performance of wideband single-shot free-breathing LGE against the standard and wideband-segmented LGEs in CIED patients.
Methods and Results:We retrospectively identified all 54 consecutive patients (mean age: 61 ± 15 years; 31% females) with CIED who had undergone CMR with standard segmented, wideband segmented, and/or wideband single-shot LGE sequences as part of quality assurance for determining best clinical practice at 1.5 T.Two raters independently graded the conspicuity of myocardial scar or normal myocardium and the presence of device artifact level on a 5-point Likert scale (1: worst; 3: acceptable; 5: best). Summed visual score (SVS) was calculated as the sum of conspicuity and artifact scores (SVS ≥ 6 defined as diagnostically interpretable). Median conspicuity and artifact scores were significantly better for wideband single-shot LGE (F = 24.2, p < .001) and wideband-segmented LGE (F = 20.6, p < .001) compared to standard-segmented LGE. Among evaluated myocardial segments, 72% were deemed diagnostically interpretable-defined as SVS ≥ 6-for standard-segmented LGE, 89% were deemed diagnostically interpretable for wideband-segmented LGE, and 94% segments were deemed diagnostically interpretable for wideband single-shot LGE.Conclusions: Wideband single-shot LGE and wideband-segmented LGE produced similarly improved image quality compared to standard LGE.
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