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Effective criterion referenced assessment requires grade descriptors to clarify to students what skills are required to gain higher grades. But do students and staff actually have the same perception of the grading system, and if so, do they perform better than those whose perceptions are less accurately aligned with those of staff? Since students' learning is influenced by their perception of the skills required to obtain high marks, it is important to learn what students think is being tested. The aims were thus to: (1) compare the student and staff perceptions of the grade descriptors associated with multiple-choice questions (MCQs) and the factors that may underlie these student perceptions; and (2) ascertain if students perform better when their perceptions of the grade descriptors are well-aligned with staff judgements. Students studying biochemistry or physics were provided with appropriate online MCQs and were asked to indicate the correct content answers and their perception of the level of difficulty (as indicated by the appropriate grade descriptor) for each question. Detailed feedback on understanding of content and level of difficulty for each question was later provided online. A key finding is that student and staff agreement on perception of question difficulty is only about 50%, for either topic. The differences were significantly correlated with prior knowledge, entry level and exam mark for physics. The implications of these findings to the wider tertiary education community are discussed. (Contains 5 tables and 6 figures.)

Introduction: A study of muscular activity has found that spinal manipulation (high speed manipulative thrusts) induces a reflex response at characteristic locations in pain-free subjects.1 In this study slower loadings (i.e. mobilisation) did not produce an electromyographic (EMG) response. However, as this study only investigated muscle responses during one frequency and at one level of force magnitude, it is not clear if other loading conditions would result in changes in muscle activity. Design: Single linear experimental study. Methods: Intervention: A manual posteroanterior (PA) mobilisation force was applied to asymptomatic subjects at three vertebral levels T6, T12 and L3. At each vertebral level the magnitude of the PA force was applied at low (70N), medium (140N) and high (210N) levels and at low (1.4Hz) and high (2.3Hz) frequencies. The PA mobilisation force was applied to the LBP subjects within a therapeutic dose. Participants: Eighteen asymptomatic subjects and three LBP subjects were studied. Outcome Measures: Muscular activity using surface EMG. Seven pairs of surface EMG electrodes were placed on seven muscle areas. Results: The raw EMG signals and frequency spectra were visually inspected. There was no evidence of EMG activity during the application of the mobilisations in any of the muscle areas examined during any of the 18 mobilisation loading conditions examined in the asymptomatic (normal) population. Pilot data indicate this is not the case with the LBP subjects. The results from the symptomatic group will be compared to the normative data. Conclusions: In pain-free subjects the application of PA mobilisations to the vertebral column applied at high, medium or low force magnitudes and at high or low frequencies does not elicit muscle activity close to or at a distance from the site of application. This normative data will allow comparison to a symptomatic population in order to get further information on the physiological mechanisms that result in the beneficial therapeutic effects of mobilisations seen in the clinical setting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The study aimed to establish the association of work stress, expressed as effort-reward imbalance (ERI), and C-reactive protein (CRP) in 152 healthy Jordanian male employees. Self-report work stress, anthropometric data, and blood for CRP analysis were collected. A significant correlation between ERI and CRP (r = 0.29, p < .01), and between waist circumference with CRP (r = 0.44, p < .01) was found. Central obesity explained most of the variance in CRP after controlling for various covariates, and ERI was not a significant predictor of CRP (ΔR2  = 0.02; β = 0.15, p = .052). However, when only the centrally obese group was considered, ERI accounted for 5.0% of the variability in the CRP (β = 0.24, p < .05). Results of this study confirm previous findings that obesity is significantly associated with CRP, and support the notion that higher ERI amongst obese workers is one small but significant predictor of increased levels of CRP., (Copyright © 2011 Society for Psychophysiological Research.)