مجله مرکز مطالعات و توسعه آموزش علوم پزشکی یزد
سال هفتم شماره 1 (بهار 1391)

After two decades of expansion of universities of medical sciences and increasing the number of students as one of the most attainable solutions to overcome sub-standard status of Iranian workforce in health section, quality of medical education has recently taken priority in national health plans. The purpose of this study was designing a benchmark tool for determining differences in the field of education among schools offering nutrition programs in Iran by stratifying their educational services.

To measure the educational performance of schools providing nutrition programs nationwide, a benchmarking tool consisting of more than 50 indicators was developed by a special committee via brainstorming and nominal group. The weight given to each indicator was defined through consensus developing methods. Each school was asked to introduce a representative who would complete a questionnaire designed to collect schools’ information. Next, all the divisions were visited by one of the project's members and the school’s representative. Then, data retrieval was performed and verified at the project’s office. The average score of each school for each indicator was calculated. Finally, a special computer software was applied to perform the final analysis.

A total of 50 indicators were designed in the form of tree diagram and were weighted via consensus agreement. The medical universities offering nutritional programs were compared using the designed model.

This study defined the educational strengths and weaknesses of nutrition program in Iranian schools that could be used as a measure for authorities to devise practical strategies for qualitative and quantitative improvement in medical education.

In the recent decades, a revision of the traditional methods of teaching and using new methods of active learning has been felt in the educational system and the application of these methods in various sciences such as medical sciences has increased. The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of interactive and task-based learning methods compared to the traditional methods of teaching to undergraduates. A survey carried out on 45 students of surgical technology and anesthesia who attended in the Research Methods Course. A reliable and valid questionnaire including ten items was used to collect data on students’ satisfaction with the interactive and task based teaching methods. The data were collected and analyzed using SPSS-V16. The findings of the study showed that most of the students were significantly more satisfied with the interactive and task-based teaching methods compared to the conventional lecturing method. Of 34 students who attended in the survey, %56.3 completely agreed and %43.8 agreed with the interactive and task based teaching methods. The highest score of satisfaction (3.56) was given to task-based learning. The findings suggest that students’ satisfaction with the interactive and task-based teaching methods may direct them towards deeper learning compared to the conventional uni-directional methods.

In this study, we examined viewpoints of students and faculty members on mission and method of morning report and offer some strategies for increasing quality and efficiency of morning report using a questionnaire based on some fundamental questions. This cross-sectional study was performed on 45 students and faculty members of teaching & research in Imam Reza Hospital. The participants responded to the nine-item survey questionnaire about how they implement morning reports. The majority of instructors and trainers (%66) reported evidence-based practice as the most important need that should be debated in morning reports while the majority of students (%58) reported diagnostic evaluation in response to the question. The majority of trainers and instructors (%41) told that the appropriate chairperson of morning reports is a specialist, while the majority of students suggested sub-specialists. Students and faculty members had different views about the purpose and discussion focus of morning report. There was different views about who should take the responsibility to conduct the meetings. Most students and faculty members agree that the educational message for the morning session is the best method of internal monitoring. They also reported that the best way to evaluate students by trainers is mastery of students on presentations and their contents.

Regarding the numerous benefits of e-learning, an investigation of its barrier and potential solutions to resolve them will be helpful. This will enable universities to implement this method and convert their traditional teaching-learning methods and approaches to e-learning. In this descriptive study a total of 242 faculty members at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences were selected randomly. A questionnaire was used to collect data on their attitudes towards barriers of e-Learning. The data were analyzed using SPSS15. The barriers were classified into six categories and twenty-four cases. The average score of the administrative category was 13.18±1.96, electronic categories was 11.66±2.32, educational category was 13.39±2.22, economical category was 9.62±2.09, cultural and psychological categories was 20.43±2.53, and finally, social and cooperative category was 10.09±1.97. The cultural and psychological categories were found as the most important barrier and the electronic category the least important one. The academics believed that they did not have enough time or skills for compiling and evaluating e-learning materials and that there was no proper culture for this. Not only the academics should learn how to compile, use and to take rapid feedback, but also it is essential that they recognize their new roles (as learning facilitators) in realizing and expanding their mode of education by their innovations.

In Continuing Medical Education (CME), paying attention to professional empowerment on the basis of community needs and learners’ institutional requirements is necessary. This study was conducted to determine continuing CME priorities of midwifery graduates employed in health and treatment centers of Kashan and Aran & Bidgol cities located in central Iran (2010). This cross-sectional study was conducted on 71 midwives. A questionnaire including 87 educational items in 6 subjects was designed. Every item was scored on a Likert scale ranging from zero to ten. Data were extracted, classified and analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive and inferential statistics. Of the six subjects raised, gynecology (7.89±1.54) had the highest score and fundamentals of nursing (6.05±2.35) had the lowest score. Among different disease the topics of abnormal genital tract bleeding (9.32±1.3), diabetes mellitus during pregnancy (9.26±1.27), breast cancer (9±1.97), anemia (8.87±1.71), preventing the birth of premature infants (8.44±2.34) and infection control in special units (7.36±3.06), had the highest means, respectively. There was a statistically significant difference between two groups of midwives employed in health centers and treatment centers regarding the need for learning some subjects. The need for CME priorities varied according to functional domains. This is essential to be considered by decision makers.

Recently, there has been a shift of emphasis from teaching to creating an interactive and student-oriented atmosphere in education. One of the method in creating student oriented atmosphere is Peer Assisted Learning (PAL), in which students play the role of teachers, assistant, and enhance other students’ learning. Regarding numerous benefits of this system, the present study aimed to survey the attitudes of teachers and students at Medical School of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences on Peer Assisted Learning.

Following a literature review, the researchers designed a questionnaire about benefits of peer assisted learning, and the stages of its content validity. Pilot study and reliability were followed. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS 16.

The obtained results showed that an absolute maximum of the participants agreed with the potential benefits of performing the proposed system. Data analysis showed that students have significantly more agreement with PAL compare to the teacher-oriented method.

Regarding the obtained results, we concluded that teachers and students agreed with the benefits and application of PAL. Implementation of this active learning system would lead in productive and capable work force.

One of the normal personality characteristics is having self-esteem and its behavioral consequences which are attributable to external or internal causes, and are effective on the academic achievement of students. The purpose of this study was to compare self- esteem, locus of control and their relation with educational status of university students at Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences in Yazd. In this cross-sectional study, 300 students of different faculties were evaluated. We used a questionnaire that includes demographic data, Rotter's locus of control standard questionnaire and Cooper- Smith's self-steem standard questionnaire. The data were collected and analyzed by the SPSS-18 software. The average score of self-esteem was 31.84±8.32 (with a range of 0-50), and the mean score of locus of control was11.59±3.19 (with a range of 0-23). 15.4% of the subjects had internal locus of control and 74.9% had high level of self-esteem. There was no statistically significant relationship between self-esteem and locus of control (p=0.27). There was a statistically significant correlation between locus of control and average score (p=0.046), self-esteem and average score (p=0.02). In this study, age with locus of control, and average score with self-esteem have positive correlations and locus of control with self-esteem has a reverse correlations. The majority of students that had a high level of self-esteem and an external locus of control has high average score and as the majority of the students who had a high level of self-esteem were studying in the School of Health.