Performing radiography is part of the chiropractor's scope of practice. This unit is providing foundation knowledge and skill that support your ability to perform radiography safely and effectively. This hands-on activity enables you to apply key theory concepts to producing radiographs so that you can see cause and effect.

You will attend 4 hours of timetabled practical activity in the x-ray suite at your campus. During the practical, you will work with your classmates under the direct supervision of your instructor to carry out the specific instructions for a series of lab exercises, with the outcome of producing the set of digital radiographic images you will use for your written report in Assessment 2.

You must use the Student Allocator system to sign up for your specific practical session at your campus. Each session has space for up to 8 students, so if you do not allocate promptly, you will limit the date/time options available to you. All student attendance and participation will be documented by the supervising instructor.

You will follow radiation safety principles and practices, adhering to the requirements of the facility's Radiation Safety Protection Plan. As the practical takes place in a patient care environment, you will be required to follow the faciltiy-specific dress code (including professional attire and flat shoes with closed toe and heel).

Attendance and participation notes will be taken by your lab instructor at each session. Your instructors will monitor your compliance with occupational health and safety practice. If your lab action or behaviour puts you or others at risk of harm, you may be removed from the lab activity. This may result in you being unable to complete the assessment.

This is a pass/fail assessment item that must be completed by the specified due date. If you have extenuating circumstances that cause you to be unable to attend your practical at your timetabled date and time, you must apply for an assessment extension. See Section 5 of the University's Assessment Policy and Procedure for details regarding assessment management, specifically around assessment extension. If your request for an extension is approved, you will be assigned a new practical date/time which will be set according to the availability of the imaging facilities and supervising staff. It is your responsibility to ensure that you can attend at that new assigned date/time. In the absence of an approved extension, you will not be able to complete this task at a later date and would thus receive a Fail grade for the assessment task, which would result in a Fail grade for the unit.

To attain a pass in this assessment, you must:

• attend the 4 hours of practical lab,
• adhere to the posted dress code as needed for access to the clinical facility,
• comply with occupational health and safety requirements of the facility and
• participate in the completion of tasks associated with the set of laboratory exercises.

As future chiropractors, you will need to be able to make reasoned judgment in performing radiographic examinations to optimise image quality and patient dose as appropriate to the individual patient and presentation. To do that, you need a solid understanding of the foundation principles of radiography and how they control image appearances.

You will create an electronic report that is an illustrated discussion of fundamental radiographic concepts. These are concepts related to beam control, differential attenuation, image geometry and scatter control.

In your timetabled practical session (Assessment 1), you will work with your classmates to carry out a set of structured experiments. These experiments enable you to apply fundamental concepts of radiographic imaging in a controlled manner. In doing so, you will produce a set of digital radiographs that can be used to illustrate these concepts. (These images MUST be included in the report.)

You will then use the Word template that will be provided on the unit Moodle site to structure and complete your report.

Your report will include one section for each core concept. In each section, you are to include:

• a discussion of the underlying principles that relate to this concept
• one or more digital radiographs from your practical session that illustrate the concept
• a description of the radiographic image acquisition (e.g. what object was imaged, the imaging set-up parameters, technical factors used)
• an identification and explanation of the specific aspects of the selected radiograph's image appearances that illustrate the concept
• a statement of how the visibility and fidelity of imaged structures is impacted by the concept

Your report will be assessed on the following criteria:

• completeness of each section of the report template relative to the content requirements listed in the Task Description
• clarity and completeness of explanations and discussions
• factual correctness of explanations and discussions
• relevance of written content to core concepts
• correctness of definitions and use of terminology
• inclusion of radiographic images that you were involved in producing during your practical session
• relevance of images used to illustrate each concept.

As you are students in a course that is accredited by your professional body, we must provide evidence that you have core knowledge and skill that underpins your ability to meet the Competency Standards of your profession.

You will write an in-class test to demonstrate your ability to apply the concepts and use the terminology from Weeks 1 - 4 of the unit. All questions will be based on the posted weekly learning goals for those weeks. Question tasks will be of the same types that you will practice in tutorials. These question tasks may include analysis of diagrams, creation of line diagrams to illustrate concepts, explanations of concepts, application of concepts to specific scenarios, definitions and discussions.

The Week 1 tutorial provides instruction and practice on how to use learning goals, define terms and analyse test questions. The weekly tutorials from Week 2 onward will provide you practice in analysing questions, formulating responses and assessing the quality of your responses.

This test is a closed-book assessment of 60 minutes (1 hour) duration. You will have a five minute settling in period and 5 minute perusal time prior to the allotted writing time. You will write the test under examinations conditions as detailed in the Assessment Procedures. You will hand in your test paper and rough paper at the end of the test period.

This test must be written at the timetabled date and time. There is no provision for a late submission and no late penalty can be applied. In the absence of an approved extension, you cannot complete this assessment at a later time, and you will receive a mark of zero for the assessment if you have not completed it by the scheduled date and time. If you have an approved extension, you will be assigned a new test date and time as soon as possible after the original test date, according to availability of a test supervisor and an appropriate room. It is your responsibility to ensure that you can attend at that new assigned date/time. Please see Section 5 of the the University's Assessment Policy and Procedure for details regarding Assessment Management, specifically around assessment extension.

Questions responses will be scored on the following criteria:

• correct use and defining of terminology
• correct selection and application of theoretical concepts to the specific question situation
• logic of reasoning in explanations
  
• clarity, correctness, relevance and completeness of the response in addressing the question that was asked.

Marks for each question are allocated based on the number of key points expected in the response to address the question sufficiently, and will be indicated on the test paper. Students should use the indicated marks as a measure of the depth and breadth of response expected.