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Teacher education quality and effectiveness have been at the centre of policy discussions in the last decades. As part of efforts to improve teacher preparation, law 20.903 requires Chilean universities to design and apply diagnostic tests assessing the construct of their choice to all first-year preservice teachers. Based on these results, universities must design strategies to support their students. However, universities are facing challenges in implementing these tests, primarily due to the complexity, time and cost associated with developing high-quality tests. In collaboration with three universities, we developed three diagnostic tests: Social Thinking Test, Attitudes Towards Diversity Questionnaire, and Mathematics test for Teaching in Primary Education. Unlike many of the tests currently used by universities, these instruments were specifically designed to measure core teaching skills and attitudes defined by the national standards for Chilean teachers. To collect validity and reliability evidence, the tests were piloted with over 850 Chilean preservice teachers. Reliability was analysed using Cronbach's alpha, with results ranging between 0.67 and 0.92. Validity was examined based on content and internal structure evidence. The analysis of content evidence indicated good coverage of the target domains as defined by the assessment frameworks, and internal structure results point towards the presence of multidimensionality in two of the three tests. This paper discusses the results of these pilot studies and how diagnostic tests that are constructed and analysed from the perspective of the standards (American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association y National Council on Measurement in Education, 2014) can provide valuable information to improve the effectiveness of teaching education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are a lot of very interesting scientific concepts to learn in natural and social science. The initial concepts that the student possesses may contradict the actual concepts, which is what causes misconceptions. Misconceptions are identified using misconception detection test tools. In fact, the development of the use of diagnostic test instruments in Indonesia is still very limited. The objective of the study is to create a diagnostic exam instrument that is two tiers and multiple-choice using certainty of response index (CRI) to identify misunderstandings that students have about changes in matters form in science learning. The research design was research and development (RnD). Development starts with literature studies, design and drafting product drafts, testing product validation with expert validation, and empirical testing. The result analysis showed that the two-tier multiplechoice diagnostic test has a high validity of 0.791. The difficulty level belongs to the moderate category, with a coefficient between 0.2 and 0.8 and a good differential and decaying power. Diagnostic tests are said to be suitable for the detection of misconceptions in science learning in elementary school. The outcome of this study contributes to increasing students' knowledge, understanding, critical thinking, and reducing the level of student misconceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Misconceptions are important to know, so that future learning can be improved. This study aims to identify students' misconceptions on the subject of Biodiversity and Protists. This type of research is descriptive quantitative. The sampling technique used in this study was purposive sampling, considering that students who had studied the material on Biological Diversity and Protists had not identified misconceptions and the geographical location of the research site. The research subjects were students of class X SMA Negeri in Kampar Regency, each in two classes, with a total sample of 405 students. The instrument used in the study was a Three-Tier Multiple Choice Diagnostic Test. The study results concluded that the average Percentage of students who had misconceptions about the material on Biodiversity was 32.44% (medium category), and the material Protista was 31.56% (medium category). In the material on Biological Diversity and Protists, many students experience falsenegative misconceptions, which means that the information possessed by students is little or incomplete. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Intoxication with new psychoactive substances (NPSs), colloquially known as designer drugs, has become a significant problem in the last several years. The aim of the study was to conduct a statistical analysis of retrospective data from test records for the presence of NPSs in patients hospitalized in 2015-2018 in the West Pomeranian province. Materials and methods: We analyzed 5,916 results of tests undertaken at the Department of Clinical and Forensic Toxicology at Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin. Blood samples had been analyzed by liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (LC/MS) and Headspace gas chromatography (GC/Headspace). Results: Our research was based on 5,916 diagnostic tests for poisoning with volatile and non-volatile organic compounds carried out in 2015-2018 at Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin. Psychoactive substances used for non-medical purposes were detected in 1,465 patients. In the period under analysis 1,328 of these patients were poisoned with classic psychoactive substances, the poisonings caused by the intentional use NPS were recorded in 137. Conclusions: A retrospective analysis of the above-mentioned data for the period 2015-2018 revealed a gradual increase in the incidence of poisoning with psychoactive substances used for non-medical purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: There has been interest in using the non-invasive, home-based quantitative faecal immunochemical test (FIT) to rule out colorectal cancer (CRC) in high-risk symptomatic patients. Aim: To elicit public preferences for FIT versus colonoscopy (CC) and its delivery in primary care. Design & setting: A cross-sectional online survey in England. Method: A total of 1057 adults (without CRC symptoms and diagnosis) aged 40-59 years were invited from an English online survey panel. Responders were asked to imagine they had been experiencing CRC symptoms that would qualify them for a diagnostic test. Participants were presented with choices between CC and FIT in ascending order of number of CRCs missed by FIT (from 1-10%). It was measured at what number of missed CRCs responders preferred CC over FIT. Results: While 150 participants did not want either of the tests when both missed 1% CRCs, the majority (n = 741, 70.0%) preferred FIT to CC at that level of accuracy. However, this preference reduced to 427 (40.4%) when FIT missed one additional cancer. Women were more likely to tolerate missing CRC when using FIT. Having lower numeracy and perceiving a higher level of risk meant participants were less likely to tolerate a false negative test. Most of those who chose FIT preferred to return it by mail (62.2%), to be informed about normal test results by letter (42.1%), and about abnormal test results face to face (32.5%). Conclusion: While the majority of participants preferred FIT over CC when both tests had the same sensitivity, tolerance for missed CRCs was low. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To investigate if Brain Natriuretic Peptide (BNP) and highsensitivity troponin I predict significant arrhythmia, symptomatic significant arrhythmia and 90-day death and/or Major Adverse Cardiac Event in Emergency Department (ED) unexplained syncope patients investigated with a 14-day ambulatory electrocardiogram (ECG) recorder. Single-centre, prospective, cohort study. Patients 16 years or over presenting within 6 hours of an episode of unexplained syncope were fitted with an ambulatory ECG recorder (Zio® XT monitor) and had high-sensitivity troponin I and BNP measured on ED admission and 3 hours later. Between 17/11/2015 and 13/06/2017, 86 patients were recruited. 24 had significant arrhythmia, 9 symptomatic significant arrhythmia and 26 patients had death and/or Major adverse cardiac events by 90 days. BNP at admission, three hours and change in BNP and high-sensitivity troponin I at three hours were associated with significant arrhythmia and serious outcome. BNP >20pg/mL and/or high-sensitivity troponin I above the 99% sex specific centile (M>34ng/L, F>16ng/L) at 3 hours had a sensitivity of 100% (21/21; 95% CI 81%-100%) and specificity of 43% (16/37; 28%-60%) for significant arrhythmia and a sensitivity of 100% (22/22; 95% CI 82%-100%) and specificity of 44% (16/36; 28%-62%) for serious outcome both at 90 days. The combination of BNP and high-sensitivity troponin I at 3 hours shows promise as a potential predictive marker for serious arrhythmia and serious outcome at 90 days and deserves further exploration as a rule out test to enable safe discharge of patients from the ED who are at low risk of having cardiac syncope and subsequent adverse events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The level of knowledge of the validity and safety of diagnostic tests is important to correctly apply and find out whether this is to rule out or detect a disease. However, no studies have been found, nor instruments to measure this knowledge. Objective: to design and validate an instrument to measure the level of knowledge about the validity and safety of diagnostic tests which are frequently used by general physicians in Chiclayo 2011. Material and Methods: We designed a questionnaire of 29 questions, 20 of which correspond to the clinical dimension and 9 to the theoretical dimension. We analyzed the content validity through the assessment by experts. The pilot test was conducted, interviewing 34 general physicians using the questionnaire, of which reliability was evaluated by analyzing the internal consistency with Cronbach's alpha method and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), as well as Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of sphericity for factor analysis. Results: Cronbach's alpha of the questionnaire was 0.76, for the clinical dimension, 0.62 and the theoretical dimension, 0.65. The ICC had a value of 76%. The KMO value was 0.207, so the factor analysis should not be performed and result of Bartlett's test was 0.00, which is acceptable. Conclusion: The study provides a reliable instrument to measure knowledge about the most common diagnostic tests applied by general physicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study seeks to bring the discipline of exercise science into the discussion of Quantitative Skills (QS) in science. The author's experiences of providing learning support to students and working with educators in the field are described, demonstrating the difficulty of encouraging students to address their skills deficit. A survey of students’ perceptions of their own QS and of that required for their course, demonstrates the difficulties faced by students who do not have the prescribed assumed knowledge for the course. Limited results from academics suggest that their perceptions of students’ QS deficits are even direr than those of the under-prepared students. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Physics educators around the world often need reliable diagnostic materials to measure students' understanding of physics concept in high school. The purpose of this study is to evaluate a new diagnostic tool on High School Optics concept. Test of Conceptual Understanding on High School Optics (TOCUSO) consists of 25 conceptual items that measures fundamental topics learned in high school curriculum. TOCUSO was designed with the use of various Optics textbooks, Turkish University exam questions, and questions generated by the author. TOCUSO items were structured as multiple-choice questions. 12 physics faculty members at the school of science and education validated questionnaire items. SPSS program was utilized to calculate reliability values of the test. KR-20 value was found around 0.73, which shows TOCUSO is a reliable measurement questionnaire. TOCUSO was applied to 183 high school students enrolled in 10th grade at the time of data collection process in Kayseri providence in Turkey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Clinicians, patients, governments, third-party payers, and the public take for granted that diagnostic tests are accurate, safe and effective. However, we may be seriously misled if we are relying on robust study design to ensure accurate, safe, and effective diagnostic tests. Properly conducted, randomized controlled trials are the gold standard for assessing the effectiveness and safety of interventions, yet are rarely conducted in the assessment of diagnostic tests. Instead, diagnostic cohort studies are commonly performed to assess the characteristics of a diagnostic test including sensitivity and specificity. While diagnostic cohort studies can inform us about the relative accuracy of an experimental diagnostic intervention compared to a reference standard, they do not inform us about whether the differences in accuracy are clinically important, or the degree of clinical importance (in other words, the impact on patient outcomes). In this commentary we provide the advantages of the diagnostic randomized controlled trial and suggest a greater awareness and uptake in their conduct. Doing so will better ensure that patients are offered diagnostic procedures that will make a clinical difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reports on the development and application of a four-tier multiple-choice (4TMC) diagnostic instrument, which has not been reported in the literature. It is an enhanced version of the two-tier multiple-choice (2TMC) test. As in 2TMC tests, its answer and reason tiers measure students’ content knowledge and explanatory knowledge, respectively. The two additional tiers measure the level of confidence of students in the correctness of their chosen options for the answer and reason tiers respectively. The 4TMC diagnostic test focused on the properties and propagation of mechanical waves. It was administered to 598 upper secondary students after they were formally instructed on the foregoing topics. The vast majority of the respondents were found to have an inadequate grasp of the topics tested. Mean scores and mean confidence associated with the answer tier was higher than those associated with the reason tier. The students tended to be poorly discriminating between what they know and what they do not know. Familiarity with the topic tested was associated with greater percentage of students giving correct answers, higher confidence, and better discrimination quotient. Nine genuine alternative conceptions (which were expressed with moderate levels of confidence by students) were identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Introduction: Diagnostic terminology used in endodontics has been based on historical use, textbook and glossary terms, best-available science, and personal conviction. There is minimal evidence that establishes an absolute set of terms that can be used to make a definitive diagnosis. As a component of the Consensus Conference on Diagnostic Terminology held in October 2008, an online survey was conducted to invitees to assess their opinions on diagnosis. Methods: Thirty-six questions were developed by the oversight committee and chairs of the subcommittees. Most questions used a modified Likert scale to generate a response. At least a 51% agreement or disagreement to the statement was considered a consensus, and a response greater than 25% but less than 51% generated a minority report. Results: Thirty-one of the 36 questions were designed to determine consensus. All 31 generated a consensus response, with 14 of those generating a minority report. Minority reports suggest that there was still greater than 25% of the respondents who did not follow consensus. Possible explanations were provided for those statements that generated a minority report. Conclusions: Data from the online survey provided trends and preferences toward particular diagnostic terms and beliefs. The limitations of such a survey are multiple including the limited size and nature of the respondent group, responses based on opinion, and question design. The online survey results suggest an awareness for the specialty to develop better diagnostic tools and terminology that are biologically and metric based. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Recent findings concerning the impact of government spending on economic growth have been as diverse as the theories underpinning them. Proceeding from a methodological critique of prior work in the field and drawing on a variety of methodological innovations suggested in recent studies, we seek to design rigorous tests using cross-section data from 18 OECD countries over four business cycles between 1960 and 1985. Government expenditure is decomposed into various categories and economic growth is corrected for cyclical disturbances. We also control for the effects of technological catch-up, institutional sclerosis and population growth along with the mediating influences of investment and employment. A variety of diagnostic statistical tests are applied, including tests for parameter stability across countries and across periods and tests for heteroscedasticity, functional form, outliers and endogeneity. We reject the hypothesis that government expenditures reduce economic growth and indicate some areas of social expenditures which may possibly tend to increase growth. We are also able to indicate the methodological assumptions and restrictions which have led to previous contrary findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]