Aims: To determine the acceptability to university students of practitioner-delivered screening and brief intervention (SBI) versus a novel approach—web-based SBI (e-SBI). Methods: A random sample of 1910 university students was invited to indicate their preferences for various brief intervention approaches in an internet survey. Results: e-SBI was the most popular intervention. It was favoured by 81% of all students and 82% of hazardous drinkers. Conclusions: e-SBI is a promising approach for the reduction of hazardous drinking among young people.

Aims: To examine the use of the Internet in a survey of drinking among students, and the effectiveness of incentives to encourage participation. Methods: In a survey of drinking in university students, a random sample of 160 students were randomly assigned to one of four token incentive conditions. All received posted invitations, and reminders by e-mail and telephone. Results: Overall response was 85% and did not differ significantly by incentive condition. Conclusion: Internet surveys are effective in obtaining alcohol use information from students. Minimal incentives may suffice if coupled with intensive follow-up.

Background: To realize the potential for mobile learning in clinical skills acquisition, medical students and their teachers should be able to evaluate the value of an app to support student learning of clinical skills. To our knowledge, there is currently no rubric for evaluation of quality or value that is specific for apps to support medical student learning. Such a rubric might assist students to be more confident in using apps to support their learning. Objective: The objective of this study was to develop an instrument that can be used by health professional educators to rate the value of a mobile app to support health professional student learning. Methods: Using the literature, we developed a list of potential criteria for the evaluation of educational app value, which were then refined with a student group using a modified nominal group technique. The refined list was organized into themes, and the initial rubric, Mobile App Rubric for Learning (MARuL, version 1), was developed. iOS and Android app stores were searched for clinical skills apps that met our inclusion criteria. After the 2 reviewers were trained and the item descriptions were refined (version 2), a random sample of 10 included apps, 5 for each mobile operating system, was reviewed. Interitem and interrater analyses and discussions with the reviewers resulted in refinement of MARuL to version 3. The reviewers completed a review of 41 clinical skills mobile apps, and a second round of interitem and interrater reliability testing was performed, leading to version 4 of the MARuL. Results: Students identified 28 items (from an initial set of 144 possible items) during the nominal group phase, and these were then grouped into 4 themes: teaching and learning, user centered, professional, and usability. Testing and refinement with reviewers reduced the list to 26 items. Internal consistency for MARuL was excellent (α=.96), and the interrater reliability as measured by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was good (ICC=0.66). Conclusions: MARuL offers a fast and user-friendly method for teachers to select valuable apps to enhance student learning.

Construct: The MUSIC® Inventory measures the construct of academic motivation across five factors: empowerment, usefulness, success, interest, and caring. The factors are defined in terms of the degree the student perceives that they have control over their environment, that the coursework is useful to their future, that they can succeed in the course, that the course and instructional methods are interesting, and that the teacher cares about their wellbeing and their success respectively. Background: A valid measure of medical students’ academic motivation would provide medical teachers with a method for evaluating the motivational aspect of their course and provide focus for changes in teaching and learning to improve medical student engagement. While the MUSIC® Inventory structure has been validated in the tertiary setting and with several professional programs, it has not been validated with medical students. The aim of this study was to use both classical test theory and Rasch modeling to assess the reliability and confirm the structure of the five-factor model of the MUSIC® Inventory with medical students. Approach: One-hundred-fifty-two medical students completed the 26-item inventory. Descriptive statistics, internal consistency, correlations between factors, confirmatory factor analysis, and Rasch analysis using the rating scale model were performed to determine reliability and validity. Findings: The five factors showed good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha .87 – .92). Correlations between factors were moderate to high (r = .38 – .89). Confirmatory factor analysis highlighted inconsistencies in factor loadings of three of the items hypothesized to measure interest. Rasch analysis using the rating scale model showed that all items for each factor had good item fit (0.65 – 1.37). Person separation (2.28 – 2.85) and reliability (.84 –.91) scores indicated that the scales were able to differentiate different levels of respondents. Item separation (2.25 – 6.97) and reliability scores (.83 –.98) indicated that the items of the scales were being differentiated by the respondents. Conclusions: Rasch analysis indicates that the five factors of academic motivation measured by the MUSIC® Inventory account for the response patterns in data from medical students. However, while the factors of empowerment, usefulness, success, and caring showed expected reliability and validity using classical analysis, three of the interest items cross-loaded on to the usefulness factor. Possible reasons may include ambiguity of language for the items or medical students’ conception of usefulness and interest. Future research will explore medical students’ understanding of the language used to measure these factors in further detail.