Staden, Christiaan van (2020) The Springfield ECG Task: A Performance Measure of Diagnostic Interpretation. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the extraordinary health, financial, social, and psychological costs that hinge on the decisions of medical professionals. Despite the importance of decision-making in medical error, little investigation into the cognitive faculties employed in medical decision making has occurred. This gap in the literature is partially due to an absence of standardised performance measures capable of facilitating the generation of primary evidence in the field of medical decision-making. The present study aimed to address this shortcoming by developing and evaluating the validity of the Springfield ECG Task (SECGT), an ecological and content valid performance measure of diagnostic interpretation. A sample of 552 adult participants completed a test battery consisting of the SECGT, another diagnostic performance measure (Blood Test Task), and four well-validated measures of executive function. Null hypothesis testing evidenced support for the SECGT as internally consistent, and possessing convergent and criterion-groups validity, with partial support for concurrent validity observed. Preliminary evidence in support of the validity and reliability of the SECGT suggests that the task may be used in future study to generate primary evidence in the field of medical decision-making, provide a framework for the development of other diagnostic interpretation performance measures, and assist in evaluating their psychometric properties (validity and reliability). ECG-experienced participants performed significantly better on the SECGT than inexperienced participants (faster completion time and greater accuracy scores), suggesting that the SECGT has the potential to serve as an entry-level assessment tool of ECG interpretation skill in educational settings.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
|---|---|
| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Counselling (1 Jan 2015 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Michael Ireland |
| Qualification: | Bachelor of Science (Honours) |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Sep 2025 04:16 |
| Last Modified: | 24 Sep 2025 04:16 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | ECG; executive function; diagnostic interpretation; psychometrics; medical error; information processing; decision-making; cognition; |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52776 |
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