Student's viewpoints about academic guidance and consultation at Babol University of Medical Sciences

Student counseling and supervision play an important role to overcome learning problems and to achieve educational goals. The present study is intended to investigate viewpoints of students regarding educational guidance and advice studying at Babol University of Medical Sciences. In this descriptive cross-sectional survey, viewpoints of 480 students were collected by a questionnaire. The validity and reliability of the questionnaire had been approved before. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 17 software. Chi- square and ANOVA tests were administered. 61.2% of all participants were female and 38.8% were males with mean age of 21.3±4.0. 37.2% of these students lacked sufficient knowledge and information on how to request from their advisors for help and guidance. Half of students (50.3%) reported attendance of advisors and holding routine consultation is inappropriate. Advisors made more educational files for females compare to males (P=0.001). No difference observed regarding educational disciplines of the advisors regarding students were dissatisfied with help and guidance received from paramedics and dentistry students in most fields (87.3% and 81.5% respectively). It seems that either student has no sufficient information about tasks of advisors and/or advisors may not do their tasks properly. It is recommended the students to be acquainted with advisors’ tasks upon their entrance into the university. Training classes for new academics would be helpful.