Attitudes toward psychiatry among students entering medical school

Objective: To survey the attitudes of Australian medical students to determine their views about the relative attractiveness of psychiatry as a career compared with other specialities, and against findings from a North American study. Method: We surveyed 655 first-year medical students attending six Australian Universities. Results: Responses indicated that Australian medical students view psychiatry as distinctly less 'attractive' than other career options, as reported in the North American sample. In comparison with other disciplines, psychiatry was regarded as more interesting and intellectually challenging, but also as lacking a scientific foundation, not being enjoyable and failing to draw on training experiences. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that psychiatry has an image problem that is widespread, reflecting Community perceptions and the specialist interests of medical students on recruitment. If psychiatry is to improve its 'attractiveness' as a career option, identified image problems need to be corrected and medical student selection processes re-considered.

Training school personnel to implement a universal school-based prevention of depression program under real-world conditions

The present study evaluated the impact of a universal prevention of depression program [the Resourceful Adolescent Program (RAP)] when implemented under real-world conditions in a school setting. Prior research has found the RAP program to be beneficial for high-school students when the program was implemented by university staff selected, trained, and supervised by a research team. The present study evaluated the RAP program when implemented by existing school personnel. Separately, we measured the impact of a training program for facilitators, the quality of subsequent program implementation, and the student's response to the RAP Program. Results showed that, in response to the training program, facilitators believed they had acquired the knowledge and confidence to implement the program and that the quality of program implementation was acceptable. The study did not demonstrate a beneficial impact of the RAP program for the students. The results raise important questions regarding the extent of training and ongoing supervision facilitators require if the beneficial outcomes for students are to be maintained when interventions are implemented under real-world conditions in school settings. (C) 2004 Society for the Study of School Psychology. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An Internet training intervention for people with traumatic brain injury: Barriers and outcomes

Primary objective: To test whether people with cognitive-linguistic impairments following traumatic brain injury could learn to use the Internet using specialized training materials. Research design: Pre-post test design. Methods and procedures: Seven participants were each matched with a volunteer tutor. Basic Internet skills were taught over six lessons using a tutor's manual and a student manual. Instructions used simple text and graphics based on Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5. Students underwent Internet skills assessments and interviews pre- and post-training. Tutors completed a post-training questionnaire. Main outcomes and results: Six of seven participants reached moderate-to-high degrees of independence. Literacy impairment was an expected training barrier; however, cognitive impairments affecting concentration, memory and motivation were more significant. Conclusions: Findings suggest that people with cognitive-linguistic impairments can learn Internet skills using specialized training materials. Participants and their carers also reported positive outcomes beyond the acquisition of Internet skills.

Unfreezing the frame: Functional fram analysis for journalists and journalism students

This paper presents two case studies that suggest, in different but complementary ways, that the critical tool of frame analysis (Entman, 2002) has a place not only in the analytical environments of critical media research and media studies classes, where it is commonly found, but also in the media-production oriented environments of skills-based journalism training and even the newsroom. The expectations and constraints of both the latter environments, however, necessitate forms of frame analysis that are quick and simple. While commercial pressures mean newsrooms and skills-based journalism-training environments are likely to allow only an oversimplified approach to frame analysis, we argue that even a simple understanding and analysis at the production end could help to shift framing in ways that not only improve the quality and depth of Australasian newspapers' news coverage, but increase reader satisfaction with media output.

Australian Clinical Psychology Training Program Directors Survey

A survey of clinical psychology program directors was conducted to provide an illustrative snapshot of clinical training in Australia. Postgraduate clinical psychology program directors from 27 universities in all States in Australia and the Australian Capital Territory offering postgraduate clinical training programs were emailed the survey; 19 surveys were returned. The present paper reports on a range of issues of relevance to clinical training programs, including numbers of students, types and content of courses, staff workload, relationship with professional bodies, practical training and university-based clinics, and concerns raised by directors. The information is intended to assist those responsible for training in clinical psychology in Australia in their work of increasing the quality of postgraduate training by being informed of the practices of other programs.

Teaching medical students using role play: Twelve tips for successful role plays

Engaging students in role play promotes active learning. Planned and structured role plays can be used to deliver components of the curriculum in clinical rotations of a medical programme. Role plays are most effective if learning objectives are defined, and the cases are challenging. All students should be involved and ground rules should be set. Allow adequate time for the role play, feedback and reflection. Let the students enjoy themselves. This paper provides 12 tips to create a meaningful learning experience for students using role play.

Approaches to training practitioners in the art and science of plant disease diagnosis

Allowing plant pathology students to tackle fictitious or real crop problems during the course of their formal training not only teaches them the diagnostic process, but also provides for a better understanding of disease etiology. Such a problem-solving approach can also engage, motivate, and enthuse students about plant pathologgy in general. This paper presents examples of three problem-based approaches to diagnostic training utilizing freely available software. The first provides an adventure-game simulation where Students are asked to provide a diagnosis and recommendation after exploring a hypothetical scenario or case. Guidance is given oil how to create these scenarios. The second approach involves students creating their own scenarios. The third uses a diagnostic template combined with reporting software to both guide and capture students' results and reflections during a real diagnostic assignment.

A misspelt youth: Spelling and orthographic learning in university students as a function of spelling-sound consistency

Pseudowords with inconsistent vs. consistent spellings (e.g., nurch, with rhyme neighbours search, lurch & perch, vs. mish, with neighbours dish, wish) were presented with definitions for naming either twice or 6 times. In an oral spelling test, there were main and interactive effects of consistency and the number of training trials on accuracy and main effects only on response latency, with the improvement in accuracy from 2 to 6 training trials greater for the more poorly learned inconsistent items. Of most interest, the smaller effect of training on accuracy in the consistent condition was reliable; contrary to the most obvious prediction of dual route spelling models that the sublexical procedure should produce correct spellings for consistent items early in training. In a second task students wrote spellings of multisyllabic words containing unstressed indeterminate (schwa) vowels. In their errors on the schwa vowel, students showed sensitivity to the most common spelling overall but also they were influenced by differences in schwa spellings in English words as a function of the number of syllables and schwa position. These results indicate that dual route models of spelling will need to accommodate the consistency of spellings within categories defined by lexical structure variables.