Journal of Medical Education
Volume:5 Issue: 1, Feb 2003

The former shtdies and observations indicate that medical shtdents vary considerably in their attitudes towards patients and health care personnel.

To study the attihtde of clerkship students towards select£:d types of patient and selected types of health care personnel.

A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted among clerkship students. The subjects received a self administered questionnaire with a covering letter explaining the project and outlining terms and conditions for participation. Since twenty-one subjects did not return the questionnaire, data analysis was based on ill questionnaires. The items were 5-poinf Likert-type. The internal consistency of the items was 0.706. Factor analysis was used in order to load the individual attitudinal items into main factors.

There is a significant association between sex and attitudes towards medical personnel. Clerkship students showed a more positive attihtde towards acute illness than chronic illness. The clerkship students responded more positively towards the health personnel than towards the patients. The results are discussed in terms of the impact of clerkship students' attitudes on patients and health personnel. Some possible justifications for these findings are discussed.

Developing key skills within the medical curriculum, especially communication and information technology skills are essential.

Lesson planning has a distinct role in enhancing education quality, as well as maintaining the friendly and dynamic atmosphere of the academic environment and increasing student's initiatives for achieving better educational attainments. Lesson planning is a process for defining the goals, understanding the needs, and specifying available tools and possible limitations. Lesson planning is a written description of this process, which shows the materials, the route, the time, and the place of instructions, as well as a method for evaluating students.

to identify the attitudes ofSemnan University of Medical Sciences (SUMS) on lesson planning.

Fifty-three faculty members of the SUMS participated in this study. A questionnaire was used, which contained 8 demographic questions, and 24 r questions for identification the faculty members' attitude.Questionnaires were distributed among the faculty members in sealed envelopes, without denoting their names. The questionnaires were gathered after being completed. Results were analyzed by calculating the mean, standard deviation, absolute and relative frequencies, and using Chi-square and Fischer exact test at the level of 5%.

II was shown that 88% of faculty members favoured lesson planning before the beginning of the semester. But they found lesson planning a difficult task, because of their heavy workload. Of the faculty members, 60.4% organized their teaching classes according to a designed lesson plan, and believed that it did affect the quality of their teaching, but 49.1% disagreed with distributing the designed lesson plan among the students.

Although professor favoured lesson planning and find it necessary to work according to such a plan, workload and lack of knowledge are defined as two main obstacles in doing so. It is believed that by decreasing the professor's workload and provision oflesson planning workshops, these problems could be solved. Professors did not favour informing the students about the contents of the lesson plan. But students' awareness of the lesson plan can improve student's viewpoints on the quality of educations. It can also guide the student's activity, motivates the students, as well as produce a dynamic interaction between instn1ctors and their students to pay particular attention to the Jesson plan. Considering all these possible benefits further studies is needed to specify the effect of revealing lesson plan for the student. Professors were interested in participating in workshops held for improving Jesson planning skills and modern hing methods Thi.. haws that/he need to learn has been firmed in faculty member.a need which should be answered by the authorities in universities.

Background According to the available evidence, problem-based learning (PBL) is one of the most successful methods in achieving higher educational objectives. In this method, the discussion about the subjects that should be taught to the students is based on a real clinical case.Various advantages and disadvantages of this method have been addressed in difJerent studies, but the students' attitude toward this method is vita/for its success.Objective To evaluate the students• altitude toward problem- based learning and to compare it with lecture-based learning.Method In this experimental study, two topics of basic immunology were chosen after holding coordination meetings. The students were divided randomly into two groups.Group A received PBLfor the first and LBLfor the secondtopic, and group B had LBLfor thefu-st and PBLfor the second topic. After the last session, a questionnaire was given to the students.Results The students considered PBL as superior in view of the student's active role in education. According to the students' opinion, group working was more evident in PBL. Although they preferred LBL to be used in a complete immunology course, they suggested that PBL is good to be used in some of the sessions.They suggested that although the learner's role is more evident in PBL, the instructor's role is still significant. They believed that self-assessment is better and easier in PBL.Discussion According to the results it is clear that, at least in some aspects, the students' attitude toward PBL is positive.This shows that by considering these aspects in educational reform programs, and by further study on the items not definitely determined in this research, we could modify PBL so that it could be used in a broader level.

The purpose of this study is to adapt, normalize and to determine reliability and validity of W1SC-. At adaptation stage, 835 students were selected through a systematic random sampling from 30 schools, after completion the test, suitable items were chosen according to Iranian culture. Then. at normalizing stage, 2456 boys and girls were selected through a systematic random sampling from 72 educational departments. The results showed thai the reliability coefficients is higher than 0.95 and the validity is high the WJSC-111 has sufficient and satisfied reliability and validity in Iranian students

Internal evaluation has started in I 995 in various educational groups of different medical universities. Currently. more than 120 groups are involved in this project. The faculty members have a key role in the process as the main elements of internal evaluation.Internal evaluation was not only helpfill in identifying different practical aspects of education, but also had a prominent role in raising several questions about methodology, objectives, effectiveness and other dimensions of evaluation.Is the so-called internal evaluation consistent with the scientific criteria of evaluation? Could any better alternative method be found to perform this evaluation in the universities? Does the result of the internal evaluarion help the promotion of the education quality?Many of these questions could be answered by comparing the current evaluations with program evaluation standards.In this article, the program evaluation standards are considered and the current situation of internal evaluation in medical education units is compared with those standards. The defects of the current evaluations are assessed and necessary recommendations are presented.

Multiple choice tests (MCT),are widely known and applied as useful evaluation tests in the field of education especially in Medical Science. Items on a multiple-choice test consist of a stem, which is followed by a correct answer as well as three to jour distracters. Items on a well-written multiple-choice test will have stems that are precise and clear, one answer that is clearly correct or best, and distracters that are plausible.

The purpose of the present study is conducting item and test analysis to 24 MCTs given in first semester of 2000-2001 educational year in medical faculty of Mashad University of Medical Science.

Data of this descriptive study were composed of 1496 MCQs gathered from 2092 answer sheets of 24 MCTs obtained from educational department of the medical faculty.A split-half method of reliability was employed to calculate reliability coefficient for MCTs. Items Difficulty and Discrimination index also were calculated for questions. Further studies should be undertaken for developments the methods for evaluation of validity, assessment of distracters and structural principles in MCTs .

Mean reliability coefficient of the exams was 0.72±0.13 and In more than 50% of cases, reliability coefficient was greater than 0.7. There was a significant difference between basic science exams and clinical clerkship exams in Reliability coefficient (P=0.001). Mean standard error a/measurement (SEM) was 3.51±1.11. In 52.2% of the cases, difficulty of MCQs was inappropriate and 49.3% of questions had inadequate discriminative power to discern between poor students and good students.

Our finding indicate that only 33% of studied MCQs have desirable or acceptable item difficulty and discrimination indices both and 34.9% of those have no desirable or acceptable item difficulty neither acceptable discrimination index. Having subjects respond reliably on a measure is a great sta11, but there is another conceptneeded to gel down really well named validity.

Physicians are constantly challenged by their patients, the media, and the rapid pace of technological advance 10 keep abreast of new diagnostic and therapeutic developments. Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the practice of making updated medical decisions through the judicious identification, evaluation, and application of the most relevant published information. RCTs are one of the best primary sources used in EBM Thus, evaluation of the strength and validity of the RCTs that supports the discussion on making medical decisions seems to be necessary. Jn this paper, main types of biases occurred during the course of an RCT as well as Assessment of RCTs as sources of information in evidence-based medicine are discussed.