Doctoral Nursing Student's Perspectives towards Educational Quality of PhD Course

Regarding the rapid increase in the number of doctoral students in nursing, evaluation of PhD course to ensure quality of education is necessary. By the assessment of doctoral program from the viewpoint of the students, this study aims to provide a clear picture of the educational quality of this course. In this descriptive study, 64 doctoral students recruited by census from the nursing and midwifery schools of Tabriz, Shiraz, Mashhad and Tehran University of medical sciences were surveyed. Quality of PhD nursing course was evaluated by international questionnaire of QCSI (quality criteria, standards and indicators) in three dimensions of educational programs, faculty and resources. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics using SPSS-PC (v. 13.5). The mean score of doctoral students’ point of view in the three parts of educational programs (48.4±3.17), faculty (31.42±2.03) and resources (18.95±2.76) was moderate. In the dimension of educational programs, components of emphasizing the research (49.3 ±0.67) and teachers’ support of students (3.32 ± 0.64) were more satisfied by students. The students were dissatisfied with the adequacy of faculty members (1.37 ± 0.77) and relevance of doctoral courses with nursing profession (1.84 ± 0.66). In the faculty dimension, students had been criticized the teachers’ performance for the supervision of dissertations (1.15 ± 0.60), and teachers’ knowledge (1.67 ± 0.87). In the resource dimension, students were dissatisfied of the adequacy of financial resources (1.95 ± 0.75) and necessary infrastructure for research (1.98 ± 0.66). Regarding the intermediate quality of doctoral course of nursing in the dimensions of curriculum, faculty and resources, revising the content of courses, increasing the number of faculty members and improvement of the resources are necessary to improve the quality of the course.