The main educational objective of this integrated course is to provide students with the foundational skills that will allow them to approach the subsequent courses of the three-year degree programme with adequate preparation. With regard to the individual disciplines: the physics course aims to lead students to an understanding of the fundamental concepts of classical physics, to the use of the basics for understanding situations and solving problems through quantitative methods, and to the understanding of some physical applications in healthcare practice. Then, the statistics course intends to introduce students to some basic concepts of statistics that they may find themselves using in the course of their professional practice, with particular focus on descriptive statistics and on the concepts of accuracy and precision in measurements. Finally, the mathematics course aims to review and, where necessary, build the foundational knowledge of mathematics needed to identify useful strategies for solving simple profession-related problems and for understanding the basic physical and chemical laws relevant to the chosen course of study.
EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES Upon completion of the course, the student will be able to:
Know and correctly interpret units of measurement Understand the fundamental formulas of physics Apply knowledge to the numerical solution of simple physics problems Use descriptive statistics tools to summarise and extract information from data Know the difference between systematic error and random error in measurements Know, calculate, and correctly interpret the main indicators of accuracy and precision Know the basics of algebra, goniometry, and trigonometry Be able to formalise mathematically and solve simple problems posed by the applied sciences relevant to the chosen course of study
Course Prerequisites
Physics: none
Math: Mathematics knowledge related to the training path provided in the second grade primary school. The main contents of the course correspond to the basic knowledge required by the secondary school ministerial programs.
Statistics for the medical sciences: None
Assessment Methods
The exam will include: A written physics exam, with 8 multiple-choice questions, 2 open-ended theoretical questions, and one numerical problem A written statistics exam (12–15 multiple-choice questions) A written mathematics exam (33 short exercises grouped by topic, to be completed without the use of a calculator)
Each exam lasts 60 minutes. The questions will relate to the syllabus of the integrated course, designed to assess knowledge and comprehension skills (50%) and the ability to apply knowledge and understanding (50%). The final grade is a single mark for the integrated course; each discipline contributes 33% of the grade (average of the three discipline grades).
