Digital Commons Network^™

Medical Simulation As A Competency-Based Assessment Within Physician Assistant Education, Michele Toussaint

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Simulation-based practices are widely utilized in medical education and are known to be a safe and effective way to train and assess learners, improve provider confidence and competency, and improve patient safety. Competency-based initiatives are being more broadly utilized to assess learner proficiency in health professions education. Recent publication of competencies expected of new graduate physician assistants, and updated accreditation requirements which include assessment of learner competencies in non-knowledge based domains, have led to the creation of this simulation-based summative assessment of learner competency in communication and patient care skills for Physician Assistant students.

The purpose of this quantitative study …

Opportunities And Obstacles In The Transition To A Distributed Network Of Rooftop Solar: A Multi-Method Approach, Steve M. Hall

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This paper investigates the feasibility and viability of providing power to Ada County, Idaho, using a distributed network of rooftop solar photovoltaic panels. Using a multi-disciplinary and multi-method modeling approach, a detailed simulation is performed where existing structures are retro-fitted with grid-tied solar photovoltaic systems using currently available technology. Feasibility is determined using simulated supply and demand per building, while viability is determined through standard financial metrics used in the energy sector. A major critique of solar energy comes from the vast amounts of space required to efficiently capture solar power, along with the inefficiencies created by transmission loss and …

Estimating Error And Bias Of Offline Recommender System Evaluation Results, Mucun Tian

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Recommender systems are software applications deployed on the Internet to help people find useful items (e.g. movies, books, music, products) by providing recommendation lists. Before deploying recommender systems online, researchers and practitioners generally conduct offline evaluations to compare the accuracy of top- recommendation lists among candidate algorithms using users’ history consumption data. These offline evaluations typically use metrics and methodologies borrowed from machine learning and information retrieval and have several well-known biases that affect the validity of their results, including popularity bias and other biases arising from the missing-not-at-random nature of the data used. The existence of these biases is …

Exploring The Usability Of Game-Based Virtual Reality For Development Of Procedural Skills In Undergraduate Nursing Students, Ann Louise Butt

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Providing safe, high quality patient care requires that undergraduate nursing students learn and apply extensive content knowledge as they also begin to develop clinical judgment. Nursing students must learn several procedural skills and be ready to remember and competently perform these skills when the need arises during patient care. Some procedures require strict adherence to aseptic technique in order to protect patients from hospital-acquired infections. Consequently, nurse educators are challenged to find innovative and interactive ways to help students develop and remember these important fundamental skills while ensuring patient safety.

This study used a mixed methods design to explore the …

The Effect Of Worked Out Modeling In Nursing Simulation, Jayne Josephsen

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This study provides a research framework that incorporates cognitive load theory (CLT) into simulation design and implementation, as well as providing a pilot tool to measure cognitive load specific to nursing simulation. The pedagogy of CLT is based in an understanding of cognitive architecture, which includes working memory, long-term memory, various types of cognitive load, and schema development. A quasi-experimental quantitative design was used with a convenience sample of senior baccalaureate nursing students who participated in simulation as part of their coursework. The treatment group received a worked out modeling intervention, designed upon the CLT instructional intervention of the worked …