Evaluation of Emergency First Response's Competency in Undergraduate College Students: Enhancing Sustainable Medical Education in the Community for Work Occupational Safety

Development, validation and measurement of patient satisfaction questionnaire in Spanish in drive thru services adapted to hospital pharmacies during COVID-19 pandemic

Background

There are no validation studies on patient satisfaction surveys in Spanish that can evaluate a hospital pharmacy drive-thru service.

Objective

To develop and apply a pharmacy drive-thru satisfaction survey in Spanish during the COVID-19 pandemic with an analysis of the instrument validation.

Methods

This was a qualitative study for developing, validating, and measuring patient satisfaction who used the drive-thru pharmacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Content validity was obtained by a two-round Delphi and patient interview for apparent validity. The questionnaire was administered to 110 patients. The researchers made an item reduction by inter-item and item-total correlation analysis, stability validation by a test-retest, a test of reliability by Cronbach's alpha, and extraction of factors by an exploratory factorial analysis. Likewise, confirmatory factor analysis was developed to obtain a structural equation model based on generating an instrument of two sub-models of latent factors (service and place) with ten observed variables (items).

Results

A questionnaire was developed that relates six observable variables to the latent factor service and four observable variables to the latent factor place which are ten items based on a Likert scale from 1 to 5, obtaining a Cronbach's alpha = 0.901. The mean population satisfaction score was 4.523. The model presented a Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) of 0.026 (0.000-0.098), and standardized beta values greater than 0.2 according to the confirmatory factor analysis. Therefore, the goodness-of-fit of our model is consistent and the instrument of patient satisfaction with the use of drive-thru has been validated. Patient satisfaction had a mean of 4.9 points.

Conclusions

This study developed and validated a reliable scale that evaluates satisfaction in a hospital pharmacy drive-thru service during COVID-19 pandemic that can be applied in other Spanish speaking countries. A great percentage of the patients that were evaluated had good satisfaction.

Analysis of Competency Assessment of Educational Innovation in Upper Secondary School and Higher Education: A Mapping Review

Despite the plethora of studies reported during the last decade in relation to educational innovation in teaching and assessment of competencies, a consensus is seemingly lacking on a definition that establishes the scope and boundaries competency assessment. This research gap motivated a systematic review of the literature published on the topics of “educational innovation in teaching” and “assessment of competencies” in upper secondary and higher education during the period from January 2016 to March 2021. The main objective of the study was to define and evaluate educational innovation in teaching and assessment of competencies in upper secondary and higher education following PRISMA guidelines for a systematic literature review (SLR) on a curated corpus of 320 articles. We intended to answer the following questions: (1) What do “educational innovation in teaching” and “assessment of competencies” represent for upper secondary and higher education? (2) How are they evaluated? Lastly, (3) are efforts exerted toward the standardization of transversal competencies? The SLR seeks answers to these questions by examining nine research sub-queries. The result indicated that the greatest effort toward educational innovation in competencies was made at the higher education level and targeted students. Competencies were revised through associations with the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda. In addition, the methodologies used for teaching and evaluation of competencies were reviewed. Finally, the study discussed which technologies were used to develop the proficiencies of students.

Conduction of Academic Examination in the University Campus by the Medicine College during Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: Elaboration of Precautionary Methods

Objective: This study was undertaken to elaborate the precautionary methods taken by the College of Medicine of Qassim University for conduction of students’ academic examinations (exams) in the university campus during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This study was conducted on undergraduate medical students (n=674) from the September 2020 to April 2021 in the College of Medicine at Qassim University. The switch into conducting exams within the center was managed by the exam committee. Multiple online workshops were conducted to the staff and students regarding the precautionary measures and the exam procedures in order to prevent the transmission of the disease among students and staff. New guidelines for undertaking the exams were designed and implemented at the exam centers in the university campus during COVID-19 pandemic. Results: All the exams were conducted in a satisfactory manner under one roof under the supervision of the invigilation team within the examination center located in the university campus. The strict implementation of precautionary guidelines and the crucial steps to prevent the spread of Coronavirus facilitated the accomplishment of this vital task in a smooth manner with no case of COVID-19 reported in any of the staff or students who participated in this activity. Conclusions: This study revealed the precautionary methods and steps undertaken by the college of medicine, Qassim University in terms of conducting exams within campus. We concluded that if implementation of precautionary measures should be carried out in a proper manner then it is possible to conduct exams under one roof.

Excel Methods to Design and Validate in Microelectronics (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor, CMOS) for Biomedical Instrumentation Application

CMOS microelectronics design has evolved tremendously during the last two decades. The evolution of CMOS devices to short channel designs where the feature size is below 1000 nm brings a great deal of uncertainty in the way the microelectronics design cycle is completed. After the conceptual idea, developing a thinking model to understand the operation of the device requires a good “ballpark” evaluation of transistor sizes, decision making, and assumptions to fulfill the specifications. This design process has iterations to meet specifications that exceed in number of the available degrees of freedom to maneuver the design. Once the thinking model is developed, the simulation validation follows to test if the design has a good possibility of delivering a successful prototype. If the simulation provides a good match between specifications and results, then the layout is developed. This paper shows a useful open science strategy, using the Excel software, to develop CMOS microelectronics hand calculations to verify a design, before performing the computer simulation and layout of CMOS analog integrated circuits. The full methodology is described to develop designs of passive components, as well as CMOS amplifiers. The methods are used in teaching CMOS microelectronics to students of electronic engineering with industrial partner participation. This paper describes an exhaustive example of a low-voltage operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) design which is used to design an instrumentation amplifier. Finally, a test is performed using this instrumentation amplifier to implement a front-end signal conditioning device for CMOS-MEMS biomedical applications.

Comparing Competency Assessment in Electronics Engineering Education with and without Industry Training Partner by Challenge-Based Learning Oriented to Sustainable Development Goals

This study assessed the “creation of technological solutions for electronic devices” competencies evaluation when faculty–industry liaison is available. This experience at Tecnológico de Monterrey (TEC) was developed with challenge-based learning provided by the automotive electronics industry addressing subjects oriented toward some objectives of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Electronics Engineering faculty and project engineers from automotive electronics and instrumentation companies promote design competencies in college students. This study analyzed the competency performance and outcome results of students who took applied electronics courses for the undergraduate level under the “i-Semester with industrial partner” for one semester and compared results with students that took the course under the traditional program. The competence evaluation was classified into three preliminary domain levels: 1 or low-level, 2 or medium-level, and 3 or high-level. Students were exposed to the conceptual, procedural, and attitudinal contents applied to solve the challenge assigned by the industrial partner. Students with an industrial partner showed a higher engagement, and they were more motivated in learning the subject, compared to students having classes in the traditional way. This study showed that in developing the competency “create technological solutions for electronic devices”, 55 students with an industrial partner obtained higher domain levels than 61 students with the traditional course.