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Background.An Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) is an effective means for clinical evaluation related to clinical competence. Historically, clinical assessment is based on direct observation which can be rooted in subjectivity. Evidence is minimal regarding psychometric properties of an OSCE in undergraduate mental health nursing education, although established as a valid measure of clinical competence. Method.A pilot study was conducted with a convenience sample of 13 sixth semester nursing students to evaluate the validity and reliability of an OSCE framework designed to assess undergraduate mental health nursing students’ clinical competence. The research questions asked: What are the psychometric properties of a mental health OSCE developed for undergraduate nursing education? How do students perceive the OSCE? Results.Preliminary validity and reliability measures were established, including content and criterion validities and inter-rater reliability. Students perceived the OSCE as both a beneficial and challenging learning experience. Conclusion.The OSCE was initially established as a valid, reliable tool for the assessment of clinical competence in undergraduate mental health nursing education. This evaluation method may be used to objectively assess mental health nursing knowledge, skills, and attitudes in conjunction with existing clinical assessment methods to provide a valid, reliable measure of clinical competence. More testing is needed.

How can early childhood teacher educators at the community college level create opportunities for their students to explore and relate to the natural world? This article discusses three learning opportunities in an early childhood associate-degree program that foster connections between preservice and inservice early childhood teachers and nature education — the Goldsworthy project, a local habitat course, and an animal study project in a curriculum course. Each learning opportunity helped teachers develop effective teaching strategies for engaging children with nature education and also a personal and professional disposition toward valuing nature education as future teachers.

This chapter describes changes in the thinking and practice of eight early-childhood teachers after they used visual data to complete a teacher research assignment in a community college teacher-education course.

Every day, early childhood teachers confront issues, problems, and concerns in their classrooms. Sometimes they do nothing. Sometimes they use trial and error. Sometimes they go to a workshop or read an article. We have found a way to intentionally and systematically research and answer our own questions and to enrich our own professional development through teacher research. Teacher research provides early childhood educators with a strategy that supports reflective thinking and practice. This article describes the experience of a small group of early childhood teacher researchers. How is it different from other required assessments? How is it different from other professional development?

Novice researchers, when confronted with a clinical problem they want to study, are admonished by more experienced researchers to search the literature for an instrument that already has established reliability and validity, fits the problem of study, or that can be easily adapted. Sometimes, however, there is no such instrument available so the researcher has to develop a new instrument. The purpose of this article is to describe the steps required to develop and psychometrically test a new instrument. A new instrument, the Infant Colic Scale, is used as an example.

The purpose of the study was to test relationships between psychosocial factors and alcohol and illicit drug use among high-risk youth living with HIV (YLH). One hundred eighty-six high-risk youth with HIV (defined as those with a substance use problem, sexual risk problem, or medication adherence problem) were enrolled across five cities (ages 16-24). Alcohol and illicit drug use were measured with the alcohol, smoking, and substance involvement screening test and a timeline follow-back interview. Questionnaires assessed constructs from the adapted Transtheoretical Model (TTM) including a continuous measure of motivational readiness in response to criticisms of the stage component. Path analysis was utilized to fit cross-sectional data collected via computer assisted personal interviewing (baseline data from intervention study). Separate models were fit for each commonly used substance. In the previous month, 47% used alcohol, 37% used cannabis, and 9% used other illicit drugs. Path models fit the data well and accounted for 30% of the variance in alcohol use and 47% in cannabis use. Higher self-efficacy predicted lower alcohol and cannabis use, but motivational readiness was only directly related to cannabis use. A reduction in pros of substance use was indirectly related to use. Social support and psychological distress were associated with TTM constructs. Interventions focusing on improving motivation and self-efficacy for healthy behaviors may reduce substance use in YLH.