Survey the Attitudes towards Thesis Writing Process among Students of Guilan University of Medical Sciences

Determining students attitudes towards the goals of doctoral dissertation writing, topic selection, choosing the supervisor, and their opinion about problems in conducting a research project, can be helpful in assisting programmers to better reform and improve the quality of this course. Survey the attitudes towards thesis writing process among students of guilan university of medical sciences, in the year of 2009. In this descriptive-cross sectional study, 164 medical and dental students who being in the last two years of their education or graduated in recently years, were surveyed. We used a self-made questionnaire comprised of 54 questions, which its validity and reliability were tested prior to initiation of the study. The questions were designed in three bases. Data were analyzed as frequency distribution, mean and standard deviation, and X² test, using SPSS software. Within the thesis process and topic selection domain, most of the students agreed with the need for learning how to write and collect a thesis (66.4%), guidance in topic selection (71.4%), and access to the resources and facilities (76.2%). Most of the students (76%) responded that they would refuse to write a dissertation if it was elective, and 71.4% were willing to write an article based on their work. Availability of the supervisor had the highest priority for the students, within the domain of supervision. 12.9% of medical and 22.5% of dental students were satisfied from thesis process there was a statistically significant relationship between the field and satisfaction of performance process (P=0.002). This preliminary research showed that students inquired to learn basics of dissertation and article writing in the form of a credit course. Encouraging students to attend research methodology workshops, teaching supervision skills to the mentors, providing research funds and laboratory equipments has positive influence to attitudes of students and improve the performance of the doctoral dissertation course.