Evaluating the Curriculum of Medical Library and Information Sciences MSc Program from the Perspective of Graduates: Towards Accountable Education

Today, accountable education has received special attention while aiming at identifying and evaluating educational needs, and revising and developing educational programs in order to meet the needs of society. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the curriculum of medical library and information sciences MSc program from the perspective of graduates according to accountable education. In this descriptive survey, all of the MSc graduates of medical library and information sciences who had been graduated from 2014-16 were selected through census method. The information data of 47 graduates were collected from the graduate database of the Ministry of health and medical education based on their names and contact numbers. Data were collected using a researcher-made (electronic) questionnaire that its validity and reliability were checked. Data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics and t-tests.

From the graduates’ viewpoints, the adaptation of the curriculum of medical library and information sciences MSc program to the scientific, personal, social, occupational and informational needs of the medical community was significantly lower than the average (50%) (p<0.05). The highest (23.76) and the lowest (22.63) mean scores were related to social (39.66) and scientific (35.99) needs respectively. Results suggest that the existing curriculum does not fully meet the needs of graduates and that it is necessary to revise the contents and syllabuses of the courses.