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The aim of this study was to evaluate the possibility of replacing removable partial denture (RPD) with fixed partial dentures on osseointegrated implants in a selective group of patients with partially edentulous lower jaws. Forty patients were evaluated to receive implants. Twenty-three patients showed a precarious oral hygiene, five patients refused the treatment (being satisfied with their RPD), six refused for economic reasons, three patients refused for fear and scepticism, one for long duration of therapy, and one was not treated because of a very marked atrophy of the alveolar crest. Finally, one patient was treated with implants. For these reasons, at the present time implants are not an appropriate treatment for introduction into large-scale public health programmes and RPD must still be considered a valid therapeutic procedure.
OBJECTIVE: The study deals theoretical aspects of evaluation and the importance of consider one as part of a research process. The diverse theoretical trends in the field of education are synthesized in two main tendencies: the participating and passive education perspectives. The influences of these two tendencies in selection the subjects for evaluation are also discussed in order to explore the gammagraphic interpretation aptitude in residents of nuclear medicine. MATERIAL AND METHODS: An evaluation instrument developed by us to explore aptitudes result of a long validation process. It consists of 90 questions was applied to the whole sample (19 residents in two IMSS courses) in one single session. We also applied other instrument of multiple choice (90 questions too) within the passive tendency of education (control instrument). RESULTS: Scores obtained by three groups of residents in nuclear medicine in the aptitudes instrument, showed difference in accordance with the respective time of experience: first year obtained the lowest scores (31.5) second year showed intermediate scores (36) 3rd the highest (43) (p = 0.03 between 1st and 3rd). The scores obtained by the control instrument, was not clear difference: the 2nd year of residents was found better (score of 56) than 3rd year residents (score 52.5) The aptitude instrument is better than the control instrument in order to explored, discriminated and estratificated by time of formative experience in medical courses. CONCLUSIONS: We believe that the aptitude instrument is capable of detecting learning dependent on the time of clinical experience. Some considerations on the advantages and scope of this instrument, as compared to other current instruments, which are also intended to measure clinical aptitudes, are done. The theoretical superiority of the clinical aptitudes instrument in relation the others are discussed.
This study examined the vocational aptitude and interest scores of 326 inpatients at a large urban psychiatric hospital. The inpatient group performed significantly below the adult normative mean on eight of nine General Aptitude Test Battery (GATB) aptitude measures; the single exception was Verbal Aptitude. Further, GATB aptitude scores (adjusted for age and education) were significantly lower for patients who were receiving (N = 210) psychotropic medication than for patients who were not receiving (N = 114) psychotropic medication, again with the exception of Verbal Aptitude. Differentiation of patients into subsamples who were receiving particular drugs or drug combinations indicated that phenothiazines in combination with Anti-Parkinsonians were associated with the poorest GATB performances. Interestingly, self-reported vocational interests were not related in any systematic fashion to receiving medication. A variety of explanations that may account for these findings, including drug side-effects and severity or type of psychiatric disorder, were investigated. Implications for vocational counselors were discussed.
The EFCS/QUATE aptitude test is an important measure for evaluating quality in cervical cytopathology and for assessing the level of experience and competence in cervical cancer screening. The test, set up in the 1990s by the ECTP/CCS working party, has been performed since 1992 in several European countries: United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Portugal, Slovenia, Hungary and Italy. In Italy, the test has been performed at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in 1992 and 1993 and in some Italian universities (Padua 1993, Turin 1994, Sassari 1995, Naples 1996, Messina 1998) and in one hospital (Genoa 1997). The minimum passing score is 60/100 (60% in all sections). The aptitude test for cytotechnologists includes: a written test (50 multiple choice questions); a practical test (screening 10 unmarked cervical smears; spot test of 20 slides with a fixed field of view); and an oral test, for borderline candidates when necessary (60%) or for the diploma with 'distinction' (95%). Successful candidates receive the Certificate of Aptitude in Gynecological Cytotechnology and are entitled to use the initials CT (EFCS-GYN) after their names for professional purposes. The aptitude test for anatomopathologists includes an oral test and a practical test (screening 5 unmarked cervical smears, spot test of 20 slides with a fixed field of view, and reading and diagnosing 3 complex cases). Successful candidates receive the certificate of gynecological cytopathology. The first aptitude test for anatomopathologists in Italy, organized and endorsed by the Istituto Superiore di Sanità in collaboration with SIAPEC (Italian Society of Pathological Anatomy and Cytopathology) and in agreement with the European guidelines for cervical cancer screening, was performed on 18 December 1997 in Rome. The total number of aptitude tests carried out in Europe is 15 for cytotechnologists and 4 for anatomopathologists. A total of 317 cytotechnologists and 73 anatomopathologists has taken the test; the success rates are 77% and 70%, respectively.
The authors conducted a population-based study to attempt to estimate the effect of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) seropositivity on Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test scores in otherwise healthy individuals with early HIV-1 infection. The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery is a 10-test written multiple aptitude battery administered to all civilian applicants for military enlistment prior to serologic screening for HIV-1 antibodies. A total of 975,489 induction testing records containing both Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and HIV-1 results from October 1985 through March 1987 were examined. An analysis data set (n = 7,698) was constructed by choosing five controls for each of the 1,283 HIV-1-positive cases, matched on five-digit ZIP code, and a multiple linear regression analysis was performed to control for demographic and other factors that might influence test scores. Years of education was the strongest predictor of test scores, raising an applicant's score on a composite test nearly 0.16 standard deviation per year. The HIV-1-positive effect on the composite score was -0.09 standard deviation (99% confidence interval -0.17 to -0.02). Separate regressions on each component test within the battery showed HIV-1 effects between -0.39 and +0.06 standard deviation. The two Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery component tests felt a priori to be the most sensitive to HIV-1-positive status showed the least decrease with seropositivity. Much of the variability in test scores was not predicted by either HIV-1 serostatus or the demographic and other factors included in the model. There appeared to be little evidence of a strong HIV-1 effect.
Second- and fourth-grade children were classified according to their knowledge of soccer (experts vs. novices) and IQ (high vs. low), and given 2 sort-recall tasks. One task included items related to the game of soccer and the other included items from familiar natural language categories. Previous research has shown that expertise in a subject can compensate for low levels of performance on text comprehension tasks. Our results, the first examining the effects of both expertise and intelligence on a strategic memory task, were that soccer expert children recalled more items on the soccer list but not on the nonsoccer list than soccer novice children. However, soccer expertise did not modify a significant effect of IQ level, with high-IQ children recalling more than low-IQ children for all contrasts. Interest in soccer was found to be related to expertise but did not contribute to differences in memory performance. The results demonstrate that the knowledge base plays an important role in children's memory, but that domain knowledge cannot fully eliminate the effects of IQ on sort-recall tasks using domain-related materials. That is, although rich domain knowledge seemed to compensate for low aptitude, in that low-aptitude experts performed at the level of high-aptitude novices, its effects were not strong enough to eliminate performance differences between high- and low-aptitude soccer experts.
Aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) methods are designed to take individual differences into account systematically in treatment evaluation. This article reviews the general concepts of aptitude and ATI and summarizes lesions learned in ATI research on educational treatments that should help ATI research on psychotherapeutic treatments. Recommendations for research design and data analysis address problems of aptitude distributions, multivariate aptitude complexes, detective work with scatterplots, disattenuation, treatment and therapist characteristics, therapist-client matching, ecological validity, outcome variables, statistical power, aggregation, and person independence. Example studies and hypotheses about the nature of ATI processes are also included.
This study examines the commonly held contention that test anxiety may serve as a source of bias in the scholastic aptitude test performance of gender and ethnic minority groups. In addition, this study examines sex and sociocultural group differences in the level and pattern of test anxiety among Israeli college students. The sample was composed of 163 male and 198 female students sitting for scholastic aptitude tests routinely administered to all student applicants as part of their college admissions procedures. About 67% were of Western cultural extraction whereas the remainder were of Eastern extraction. Significant differences in text anxiety scores for males and females were observed, with greater sex group differentiation on the Emotionality than on the Worry scale. Test anxiety scores were not discernible by ethnicity or social class. Furthermore, test anxiety was not differentially related to aptitude test scores by sex or sociocultural group membership. Thus, this study lends little evidence to the common contention that test anxiety differentially debilitates the aptitude test scores of females and ethnic minority student candidates.
This study examined the effect of an academic year of direct instruction in the phonology/orthography of Spanish on the native-language skills and foreign-language aptitude of high school women identified as at risk (n = 14) and not at risk (n = 19) for experiencing problems with learning a foreign language. At-risk students received a specialized teaching approach; not-at-risk students received traditional foreign-language instruction. Pre- and posttest results showed that both groups improved significantly on a foreign-language aptitude test, and the at-risk group made significant gains on native-language phonology/orthography measures. Pretest comparisons showed significant between-group differences on several phonological/orthographic measures and the foreign-language aptitude test. Posttest comparisons showed that the not-at-risk subjects still scored significantly higher than at-risk subjects on the foreign-language aptitude measure; no differences were noted on two native-language phonological/orthographic measures. Pre- and posttest comparisons between groups showed that the at-risk group made significantly greater gains than the not-at-risk group on phonological/orthographic measures. Implications for instruction are presented.
The questions studied were whether a) cognitive style might predict differential success in nursing courses having a different specialty content focus and b) whether after the inclusion of aptitude measures and previous achievement measures FDI cognitive style would significantly increase the prediction of academic achievement in nursing courses of differing specialty content. Senior baccalaureate nursing students completed the Group Embedded Figures Test as a measure of field-dependence-independence (FDI) cognitive style. Aptitude and achievement scores were obtained from students' files and instructors' grade sheets. The findings were that FDI cognitive style is not a predictor of differential academic success. The junior nursing grade point average was the best predictor of achievement in senior level nursing courses. The prediction of academic achievement of nursing students has received researchers' attention over the years in an attempt to identify data that might aid in the establishment of selection criteria, in program and curriculum planning, and in the establishment of remediation or supportive programs for enrolled students who have been identified as high risk. In most studies, affective factors alone, such as personality characteristics and vocational interests, have not been found to be predictors of academic achievement. Most researchers have found that previous achievement or aptitude measures are the best predictors of nursing course achievement (Schwirian, 1976; Grant, 1986). While previous achievement and aptitude measures may be used in the selection process, they are not helpful in giving direction for planning teaching-learning experiences. Cognitive style might serve this purpose if it was found to be predictive of academic achievement.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the aptitude degree of the critical reading in reports of clinical investigation in the residents of the different areas of medical specialties. MATERIAL AND METHODS: It was elaborated and it validated an instrument to explore the critical reading in their abilities of to interpret and to judge. We studied 572 medical residents of eight units of the Mexican Institute of the Social Security: 292 of the medical area, 227 of the surgical area, 30 of the area of auxiliary in diagnosis and treatment, and 23 of the research area. RESULTS: The median of the qualifications obtained, they were low (considering a theoretical qualification maxim of 100), for the residents of the three areas: medicine with 34, surgical with 30 and auxiliary in diagnosis and treatment with 28.5. For the research area, the aptitude was a medium degree with 49. Of the 572 residents 98 (17.1%) it didn't surpass the limit of the accountable qualifications for a random effect. In the medical area we found a positive differential effect of the time of residence in the aptitude for the critical reading, particularly in the specialty of Internal Medicine. CONCLUSIONS: The development of the aptitude for the critical reading of reports of clinical investigation in general is low, the exception, are the residents in investigation and in certain measure those of internal medicine; in this last one it seems product of an intentional, collective, systematic and progressive exercise.
This study examined the interrelations of personality traits, aptitude test scores, and job performance self-expectations as predictors of success in the FAA Academy screening program of prospective air traffic controllers. Based on the State-Trait Personality Inventory (STPI), men and women Air Traffic Control Specialist (ATCS) trainees exhibited less anxiety and anger than normative groups of college students and Navy recruits. ATCS pass rates for 1,284 entrants were lower within each aptitude test score level for the subjects with anxiety or anger scores above the normative levels. Analyses indicated significant relationships between self-expectations of future job performance and both anxiety and aptitude test scores. Personality factors were found to affect the predictive validity of the primary test used for determining a student's aptitude for learning air traffic control principles and procedures.
This article is a reinterpretation of an unsuccessful attempt to develop a standard battery of aptitude measures to distinguish practicing dentists. Of 22 potential predictors used by a firm specializing in aptitude testing and career counseling, the national sample of 116 dentists tested showed few differences from the norm group, and some differences were counterintuitive. For example dentists performed no better than the norm on spatial visualization and worse than the norm on several measures of language skill and on finger dexterity. Based on these findings, this paper argues that a broad conceptualization is required when attempting to characterize the aptitudes necessary to complete dental education and to maintain a dental practice. The apparent inconsistency between these findings and successful prediction of performance in laboratory courses using available admissions instruments is explained.
This paper discusses the problems involved in the selection of dental students and the need for some form of aptitude testing. It describes the situation in the United Kingdom both in the past and the present, and then describes in detail the situation in North America (both in the United States and Canada). The Dental Admission Test, its history and the research into its development are described with particular emphasis on the dexterity, perceptual and aptitude components of the test. More recent research into dexterity and aptitude testing of dental students is also covered. However, it is apparent that many questions remain unanswered.
Recent interest in the selection of surgical trainees has been directed towards the use of aptitude tests. Using mainly senior surgeons' ratings of trainees' surgical ability for comparison, specific areas of objective investigation have included manual dexterity, spatial ability, personality, and decision-making ability. While certain spatial ability tests have been shown to correlate with ratings of surgical skill, tests of manual dexterity have not. Personality variables, specifically, show how surgeons deal with stress and decision-making ability, and are considered to be important within the profession. Although aptitude tests are being used in medical recruitment, there is still widespread disagreement over their inclusion and their validity. It is proposed that the use of aptitude testing in surgery is limited by three principal factors: there are too few well-designed studies investigating the basic psychological and psychomotor abilities considered to be specific to surgical skill; the use of subjective ratings of surgical ability as the independent variable in most studies; and the fact that, as yet, there is no working definition of superior surgical ability.
Musical aptitude was assessed in 16 adults nominated as having special musical interests and/or skills and 16 matched comparison adults. Information pertaining to strengths and weaknesses in adjustment was also obtained. Musical target subjects scored higher on the test of musical aptitude, particularly if they played a musical instrument. Evidence for difficulties in adjustment associated with musical skill or interest was mixed, although, in general, the results suggested no pervasive maladjustment among those with exceptional skill combined with mental retardation.
Cognitive abilities, scholastic aptitude and academic achievement were studied for 20 left hemisphere lesioned (LL) and 12 right hemisphere lesioned (RL) children in comparison with matched peers. On the Cognitive clusters, both LL and RL children performed significantly poorer than controls on the reasoning, perceptual speed and memory clusters. For the Scholastic Aptitude clusters, lesioned subjects performed significantly lower than controls on all clusters except for the knowledge cluster. On the Academic Achievement clusters, LL performed significantly poorer on the written language cluster while RL performed lower on the reading, math and written language clusters. Age of lesion onset, site of lesion and IQ differences are discussed in relationship to the ability clusters measured.