Course Credits of Nutrition Sciences BSc Program: Perspective of Students

Surveying the viewpoints of students and graduates is one of the important steps in determining the aspects of a curriculum that require revision. The purpose of this study was to assess the opinions of students of nutrition sciences about the credits of basic courses in Iranian medical universities 2014-15.
This cross-sectional study was conducted on 185 MSc and final-semester BSc students who were selected from all Iranian medical universities through convenience sampling census. Data collection tool was a valid and reliable researcher-made questionnaire. The proportion of course credits to content, interest in each course, proportion to community needs, and relation to the field nutrition were assessed. Data were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics.
As to basic nutrition 2, pharmacology, pathophysiology, principles of meal planning, diet therapy 1, diet therapy 2, nutrition for special groups, nutrition physiology and diet therapy apprenticeship, 49.8, 61.3, 61, 63.6, 66.2, 68, 56.2, 62.5, 56.2 percent of the participants respectively stated that the credits of these courses were inadequate relative to their contents. Most of the students believed that the courses metabolism biochemistry, basic nutrition 1, basic nutrition 2, pharmacology, pathophysiology, English for nutrition students and principles of meal planning were highly related to the field nutrition. Most students also believed that 5 new courses should be added to the curriculum. 84.8% and 93.7% of the students respectively believed that an internship in the field course and an internship program during theory courses should be created. Also, 58.6% of them believed that the length of the program should be more than 4 years and as a PhD program.
According to the findings of this study, revision of the curriculum of nutrition sciences BSc program by taking students’ opinions into account seems necessary.