مجله ایرانی آموزش در علوم پزشکی
سال چهاردهم شماره 11 (پیاپی 73، بهمن 1393)

Identification of counseling needs of students paves the way for better organizing the process of counseling and guidance of students in university. This study aimed to determine the counseling needs of students in Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in 2013. This cross-sectional descriptive study was performed on 391 students of Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences. Data collection tool was a self-administrated 4-point scaled questionnaire including 34 items which asked students’ opinions on their needs to counseling and guidance in different areas. Validity of the questionnaires was confirmed by content validity and its reliability was confirmed usingCronbach’s Alpha Coefficient. The data were analyzed by SPSS software using t-test and ANOVA. The mean of counseling need priorities, in order of importance, were: personal development (2.71±0.59), vocational needs (2.69±0.60), educational needs (2.57±0.71), family and marriage needs (2.55±0.62), and emotional-psychological needs (2.47±0.66). Counseling needs of female students were significantly greater than male students in all areas (p<0.05). No significant difference was found between indigenousness, field of study, year of admission, job, parents’ education and the counseling needs of student (p>0.05). Results showed that personal development and vocational needs were the most important counseling needs of students; it is therefore recommended that universities and higher education institutes consider these factors in designing university counseling programs in order to facilitate students’ academic achievements and to prevent their academic failures.

Academic achievement of students is one of the most important indicators for assessment of higher education. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between perception of educational-research environment and research self-efficacy and academic achievement of students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. This descriptive-correlational study was performed on all graduate students of faculties of Nursing and Midwifery, Pharmacy, Dentistry, and Medicine in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in 2012-2013 academic years. The sample included 185 students selected randomly through stratified proportional sampling (by their faculty). Data collection tools were a researcher-made university educational-research environment questionnaire and Salehi’s research self-efficacy questionnaire. GPA was used to measure students’ academic achievement. The validity of the researcher-made questionnaire was verified by exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis of construct validity and the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used in order to measure the reliability. The data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Pearson correlation, regression, and independent t-test. Results showed that there was a significant positive relationship between educational-research environment and academic achievement (r=0.19,p=0.04). There was a significant positive relationship between subcomponents of teaching quality and academic achievement of students (r=0.20, p=0.037). Also, among the total research self-efficacy scale and its seven subcomponents, only two sub-components of self-efficacy in conceptualization(r=0.33, p=0.0001) and self-efficacy in search and translation skills (r=o.19, p= 0.04) were significantly related to academic achievement. Moreover, results of the t-test showed that there was a significant difference between male and female students in terms of academic achievement (p= 0.007). In order to enhance students’ academic achievement, it is necessary to improve the educational-research environment and students’ confidence in relation to research skills in searching and translating English texts.

Today, interprofessional collaboration and team care as well as interprofessional education are inevitable necessities for addressing healthcare needs of societies. Due to a contradiction between the need to provide team care at health centers and the lack of prioritization and implementation of team-based and interprofessional approaches to education in the health system, this study was conducted to explain the barriers to implementation of team care and interprofessional education in Iran from the viewpoints of educational managers of the health system. This qualitative content analysis study with a conventional approach was carried out from August 2013 to Jul 2014. The data were collected through semi–structured individual interviews with 16 educational managers and researchers in universities of medical sciences and medical education development centers who were selected by purposive sampling. All interviews were transcribed word by word and then analyzed using MAXQD software. Two categories and eight subcategories were identified explaining the barriers to implementation of team care and interprofessional education from educational managers’ viewpoints. The two main categories included cultural-attitudinal barriers and structural-functional barriers. The first category consisted of subcategories such as weakness of systemic thinking, individualistic culture, profession-orientedness, physicians’ predominance, and role models. The second category included subcategories of management structure, stunted growth of educational management, inadequate understanding and weak evidence. Existent barriers and their influence on each other have prevented the implementation of team care and interprofessional education by creating a vicious cycle. Since the cultural and attitudinal changes occur over a long period, it is necessary to move towards changing the culture and attitudes and implementing team care and interprofessional education through restructuring the educational management as well as implementation of interprofessional education pilot programs and developing research and evidence accordingly.

The expansion and development of biomedical sciences and their complexity and specialization have brought about the need for training competent specialists to carry out research in this field. The present study aimed to perform a needs assessment and determine the objectives of biomedical research training course. This qualitative needs assessment was carried out through semi-structured interviews with ten experts in biomedical-related sciences who were selected by purposive sampling. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze the results. In order to verify the accuracy of data, an investigative method was used by the subjects. Most interviewees acknowledged the necessity of designing such a course. Data analysis resulted in the extraction of 75 codes and 7 main themes including: necessity of course designing, course objectives, course content, content organization, learners’ characteristics, time of course offering, and certification. The study led to the extraction of educational needs of a biomedical research training course which could become the basis of developing such a curriculum. Drawing on these basic data developed by applying proper scientific principles, it is expected that the implementation of this course may train competent learners who will be responsive to stakeholders’ expectations.

Enabling nursing students in clinical skills such as management is only possible through creating enough opportunities for obtaining and practicing such skills in a clinical environment. Therefore, given the importance of this issue and lack of information and backgrounds on the subject, this study aimed to evaluate management internship of nursing students through both qualitative and quantitative methods. This concurrent mixed methods study was conducted in nursing faculty of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in 2011 and data were gathered in two phases, qualitative and quantitative. 80 nursing students were selected in the quantitative phase (65 females and 15 males) who completed a management internship evaluation questionnaire whose validity had been verified earlier (r=0.8). At the same time, data about internship procedures were collected for the qualitative phase by interviewing 18 nursing students. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed by descriptive methods and qualitative content analysis respectively. Findings of the quantitative phase showed that students became mostly proficient in routine activities such as writing a daily report and delivery and change in wards while had little proficiency in special and non-routine activities such as applying for monthly necessary equipment and participating in staff on-the-job training. In the qualitative phase, 48 conceptual codes were extracted. These experiences were classified into two categories of learning experiences and internship problems. Learning experiences were classified into five subcategories: organization, coordination, control, assessment and planning, and recording and reporting. Internship problems were classified into three subcategories: instructor-related problems, nature of internship training, and the internship environment. The results demonstrated that although students mostly became proficient in routine activities, they had never experienced some of these activities. This study also showed that there are barriers to implementation of such internships in terms of the nature, instructor, and environment which will have impacts on achieving internship objectives.

Today, the importance of students’ education as lifelong learners is taken seriously and its development is considered in all suggestions for improving medical education. Jefferson Scale of Physician Lifelong Learning-Medical Students (JeffSPSLL-MS) is one of the lifelong learning measures which has not been implemented in Iran yet. This study aimed to investigate factor structure and reliability of the Persian version of JeffSPLL-MS among Iranian Persian speaking students. This cross-sectional study was conducted on 430 students in Birjand University of Medical Sciences who were selected through stratified random sampling. The data were collected by Persian version of JeffSPLL-MS. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to investigate the factor structure of JeffSPLL-MS; the adequacy of model fit was assessed by the goodness-of-fit index, adjusted goodness-of-fit index, the root mean square error of approximation, chi-square index and its corresponding degrees of freedom, and comparative fit index. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used to check the reliability. The goodness of fit indices including RMSEA approximated 0.1 and GFI and CFI approximated 1; therefore the fit of model was good. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the three-factor structure of Persian version of JeffSPLL-MS had acceptable fit to the data. Also, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.69 for the whole tool; it ranged from 0.64 to 0.78 for the subscales. This study confirmed the three-factor structure of 14-item Persian version of JeffSPLL-MS including beliefs related to education and motivation, information search skills, and attention to learning opportunities. Therefore, this tool seems to be appropriate for assessing lifelong learning among Persian speaking students.

Evidence-Based Medicine is the proper application of the best available evidence in making health care decisions for each patient and merging personal clinical experiences with the best available clinical evidence resulted from systematic research. This study aimed to investigate the validity and reliability of the attitudes towards and self-reported ability in evidence based medicine questionnaire among general practitioners (GPs) in health care centers of Iran University of Medical Sciences. This descriptive study was performed on all general practitioners in health care centers of Iran University of Medical Sciences (n=80) who were selected through convenient sampling in 2014. Baum’s questionnaire of attitudes towards and self-reported ability in evidence based medicine was translated into Persian and after verification of the translation; the questionnaire was distributed among general practitioners. The collected data were analyzed using Pearson’s correlation coefficients, Cronbach's alpha and factor analysis. The reliability in terms of internal consistency was higher than 0.7 for all questions. Content Validity Index (CVI) and Content Validity ratio (CVR) were 0.789 and 0.7 respectively. For the construct validity, 71.79 percent of the variance was explained by two factors of attitudes and practices. Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.396 for attitudes and 0.934 for self-reported ability; it was 0.784 for the whole instrument. Most of the GPs considered everyday use of EBM useful. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the highest score was related to design of questions for a given clinical situation and the lowest score was related to search and find an article in less than 5 minutes. The Persian version of attitudes towards and self-reported ability questionnaire is reliable and valid.