فهرست مطالب

Educational Research in Medical Sciences - Volume:6 Issue: 2, Dec 2017

Educational Research in Medical Sciences
Volume:6 Issue: 2, Dec 2017

  • تاریخ انتشار: 1396/10/30
  • تعداد عناوین: 9
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  • Mohammad Ali Nemati *, Abbas Abbaspour, Vida Sepahi Pages 52-62
    Introduction
    Institutional research (IR) refers to the process of guiding academic research works and its relation with policy and practice, so as to enhance the quality of university. The present research is aimed at investigating functions of IR across universities of medical sciences in Iran and the world.
    Methods
    In this review study, the required resources were collected by systematically searching Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, AIR, and ERIC databases using the following keywords: Institutional, Research, Association for Institutional Research, and Institutional Research. For this purpose, firstly, a total of 186 papers related to IR were considered, of which 35 IR-related papers published during 1966-2017 period were finally selected.
    Results
    Results of investigations performed at national and international levels show that IR not only provides its four main functions as information authority, spin doctor, policy analyst, and scholar and researcher but also offers other functions such as knowledge management, information management, strategic planning, accreditation, and university-industry interaction facilitation.
    Conclusion
    Decision-making units in universities of medical sciences in Iran include centers for studies and development of medical science education as well as policy-setting councils. Activities of these centers indicate that six out of 18 IR activities proposed by Volkwein were covered, and for other activities no particular task was planned for either these two units or other units of the university, and most likely, no particular precedent study is performed to support policy analysis and researching. This conclusion can serve as a guide for thinking and taking action for establishing an office of institutional research in every university across the country.
    Keywords: Institutional research, Medical education, Higher education, Decision-making, Policy-making
  • Sajjad Saadat, Amir Ghamarani Pages 63-68
    Introduction
    A number of studies have argued that student's academic self-efficacy is affected by various factors. This study investigates the role of the dark triad personality and wisdom on the Iranian students’ academic self-efficacy.
    Methods
    In this correlational study, 177 (84 female and 93 male) students of the University of Isfahan aged 18-54 years old (M = 23.1, SD = 4.9) were selected. Total academic mean range of the participants was 10 to 20 (M = 16.4, SD = 1.6). Participants completed the College Academic Self-Efficacy Scale, The Dark Triad Dirty Dozen, and Three-dimensional wisdom scales.
    Results
    Results showed that there was a negative relationship between the variables of Machiavellianism and psychopathy and academic self-efficacy; inversely, there was a positive relationship between variables of cognitive and reflective wisdom and academic self-efficacy. Reflective wisdom, narcissism, and Machiavellianism predicted 0.17% of the self-efficacy.
    Conclusion
    The results of the present study supported the importance of the dark triad personality and wisdom, as the variables, which were able to predict the academic self-efficacy of the students.
    Keywords: Machiavellianism, Psychopathy, Narcissism, Self-Efficacy, Wisdom
  • Mozhgan Mostafaei Mehr, Leila Afshar *, Fatemeh Rajati, Foroud Shahbazi Pages 69-76
    Introduction
    Recent developments in the practice of pharmacists and inadequate skills and knowledge of ethical concepts and values have seriously challenged the pharmacists. Promotion of professional ethics curriculum for better clinical decision-making in patient care is vital to eliminate these problems. This study was aimed to perform a comparative study of professional ethics course in Pharm. D. curriculum in ten selected pharmacy faculties.
    Methods
    This descriptive-comparative study compared professional ethics curriculum using Brady's model at ten selected pharmacy Faculties according to the rankings of Quacquarelli Symonds institute, including description, interpretation, juxtaposition and comparison. The dimensions of this course were obtained by a researcher-made checklist based on the main elements of a curriculum. The validity of the instrument was confirmed by medical education experts.
    Results
    The results showed the main objective of pharmacy curriculum was promoting the health of patients and society. Most similarities of professional ethics curriculum included presenting lecture method along with other student-centered methods in six faculties, presenting the concepts of ethics and law in the course content in nine faculties and offering the course in the first semester concurrently with apprenticeship in five faculties. Most differences were found for definition of existing grounds for production of educational content in one faculty and e-learning methods in two faculties.
    Conclusion
    The chosen pharmacy faculties were common in the main objective of the curriculum but were different in criteria for development of professional ethics course content, including social, cultural and regional contexts as well as student learning needs and use of e-learning methods. Offering the professional ethics course in the first academic year concurrently with clinical work as well as employing technology-based methods for teaching and student's assessment at selected faculties, owing to their localization in professional ethics curriculum in Iran, can be taken into consideration.
    Keywords: Comparative study, Curriculum, Pharmacy, Ethics, University
  • Jafar Torkzadeh *, Jamshid Eslami, Zahra Firoozi, Mohsen Faryadi Pages 77-83
    Introduction
    Curricula are the core of education in academic centers. One of the most important topics of curricula is the patterns that guide the teaching-learning process, and based on that instructors adopt effective patterns and strategies in their classrooms. Given the importance of this issue, this study aimed to investigate and identify the curriculum patterns of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (SUMS) at the School of Nursing and Midwifery from the student's perspective.
    Methods
    This study is practical in terms of the purpose and adopts a descriptive survey method. The population of this study included all students of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at SUMS. The total number of students was 545 people; using proportional quota sampling 217 samples were selected. The instrument used in this study was a researcher-made questionnaire about curriculum patterns. Using content validity, the validation of the questionnaires was calculated. The reliability of the questionnaires was calculated using Cronbach alpha coefficient. Data were analyzed using one-sample t-test, independent t-test, and one-way ANOVA.
    Results
    The results indicated that technical curriculum patterns were the dominant patterns applied by lecturers of School of Nursing and Midwifery at SUMS (P
    Conclusion
    In general, this study showed that the dominant curriculum pattern of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at SUMS was technical curriculum patterns. Based on results, it can be said that in general, because of the medical education system's emphasis on fostering higher levels of thinking, life-long learning skills, essential abilities and practical and empirical learning which comply with non-technical curriculum patterns, it is necessary to revise curriculum patterns of lecturers in this school.
    Keywords: Education, Curriculum, Medical education
  • Afshin Mousavi Chalak, Aref Riahi *, Amin Zare Pages 84-90
    Introduction
    Scientific databases are one of the most important information resources in academic communities and can largely affect different aims and goals of students. This study was aimed to determine the use and awareness of and satisfaction with scientific databases among students at Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences (MazUMS).
    Methods
    This cross-sectional study was conducted during the academic period 2016-2017. A researcher-made questionnaire based on the review of internal and external resources about the subject (in 6 sections) with approved reliability and validity was distributed among 238 students at MazUMS (M.Sc., Ph.D., M.D., and residents). Data were analyzed by SPSS.16 software using descriptive and inferential statistics.
    Results
    The findings showed that most of the students used scientific databases because of clinical activities (mean= 4.27). Also, most students had an average knowledge about ISI databases (4.43) and they used PubMed more than other databases (4.30). Further, the highest satisfaction with databases was found for ISI (4.28). Moreover, unfamiliarity with English language was the most important barrier to using scientific databases.
    Conclusion
    The use and awareness of and satisfaction with scientific databases among students at MazUMS were more than average and close to high level. MazUMS can provide better conditions for students to use scientific databases by planning and adopting suitable policy and eliminating the barriers and challenges, thereby promoting their scientific and professional developments.
    Keywords: Information resources, Scientific, Database, Students, Medical
  • Cyrus Jalili, Farzad Jalilian Jalilian, Maryam Molseghi Molseghi, Mehdi Mirzaei, Alavijeh * Pages 91-97
    Introduction

    Consultation can play an effective role in accommodating students to conditions and can be followed by academic achievement. This study was aimed to determine the consultation needs assessment among medical students in Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (KUMS).

    Methods

    This cross-sectional study was conducted among 300 students from undergraduate basic sciences of medical faculty of KUMS during 2016. Two structured questionnaires were applied for collecting data: demographics and consultation needs assessment. Data were analyzed by SPSS version 16 using bivariate correlations, t-test, and ANOVA test.

    Results

    The age range of participants was 19 to 31 with the average of 22.78±2.30. Gender was associated significantly and statistically with the areas of individual growth and promotion needs, educational needs, employment needs and emotional needs; girls in these areas acquired a higher score compared to boys (P

    Conclusion

    Our findings indicated that most of the student's needs were in the field of individual and educational growth and promotion. Furthermore, the average scores of guidance and consultation needs assessment of the female students was higher, with the necessity of paying more attention to the consultation problems among them.

    Keywords: Needs assessment, Employment, Training, Emotional, Consultation
  • Masoomeh Eivazi, Fatemeh Rezaei *, Hoora Shadravan Pages 98-101
    Educational environment plays an important role in the student's learning process. This descriptive study was conducted to evaluate the educational environment of Kermanshah School of Dentistry from the viewpoint of the last three-year dental students. All the last three-year students (115) were included in this descriptive study. Dental Student Learning Education Survey was used. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS.16 software. The mean score of educational environment assessment was 3.54±0.5 out of 4. The mean scores for interest in the major, flexibility of curriculum, student-student interaction, emotional atmosphere, attention to student's concerns, compatibility of educational activities with educational objectives, organization of curriculum and development of learning and extracurricular activities were 3.55±0.47, 2.81±0.65, 3.01±0.57, 3.07±0.57, 2.68±0.62, 2.85±0.59, 3.22±0.55 and 3.34±0.5, respectively. The studied educational environment was evaluated to be at average level. The domains with shortages from the viewpoint of students are suggested to be promoted in order to increase student's efficiency.
    Keywords: Educational, Environment, Questionnaires, Dental students
  • Fatemeh Rezaei *, Nafiseh Nikkerdar, Yousef Hadian Zarkesh Moghadam Pages 102-104
    This study originated from a desire to learn how students perceive the educational environment in medical and dental schools. This descriptive study was done using the standard tool DREEM on 472 students of medicine and dentistry at Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (KUMS). Reliability and validity of the Persian version of DREEM questionnaire were approved. The questionnaire consists of the student's socio-demographic information and 50 questions in 5 domains of learning. At the end, the results were analyzed using the SPSS 16 software and reported as follows: student's perception of learning mean score 20.39±5.92 from 48; student's perception of teachers 20.96±6.05 from 44, student's academic perception 14.71±5.58 from 22, student's social perception 13.85±3.94 from 28 and student's perception of atmosphere 22.58±5.93 from 48. The student's attitude towards the condition of the educational environment in Medical and Dental Schools of KUMS on the basis of DREEM model is observed as moderately favorable which means there are some problems in this regard.
    Keywords: Education, Dentistry, Medical, Students, Environment
  • Amin Daemi *, Hasan Abolghasem Gorji, Fatemeh Oskouie Pages 105-106
    The World Health Organization (WHO) in World Health Report 2000 emphasized the stewardship function of the health systems. Stewardship of health human resources is described as training human resources of the health system purposefully and according to the health needs of the population. The importance of the decisions about training human resources is paramount because the impact of the decisions may appear years or even decades later and because despite physical resources, you cannot put them away when their skills are not needed any more (1).
    Despite such emphasis on stewardship of health manpower by the WHO, and despite the Integration of Medical Education and Service Provision (IMESP) in Iran 15 years prior to it (2), still the calculation of student admission in health sciences in Iran does not benefit from a scientific base. The routine process of calculating the number of students in medical sciences is as follows: The head of department, based on his/her subjective estimation of potentials and infrastructure of the department, proposes a number which may be modified by the Deputy of Education (DE) of the university. The DE gathers the proposed numbers of all fields from the faculties and transfers them to the DE of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education (MHME). The deputy adjusts the final numbers and imparts them as the capacity of the university for the next year. This process repeats every year without any strategic plan for next years and decades.
    The MHME uses some indices to adjust the number of admitted students among which are the ratios of physicians to the population, specialists to general physicians, physicians to hospital beds, nurses to physicians, nurses to hospital beds, nurses to the population, and dentists to the population. The first point about such ratios is that there is no standard or even census about their exact value which is appropriate. The second point is about the ratios of manpower to hospital beds. Because hospital construction is separate from the human resource planning deputies of the MHME, the DE is not aware of new hospitals under construction and their needs for manpower. Furthermore, the bed occupancy rate in different regions, different specialties, and in different years is varying (3). So these differences and their trends should also be considered in calculation of manpower for the health system. The ratios to the population also have their own issues to consider. They mostly consider the current population of the country, not the estimated future population and its growth. The structure of the population also may change during the time and should be considered. In fact, the country is going towards aging and the elders have different health needs compared to the young ones. The last but not the least point is that such ratios are not calculated for all health fields. Then, the adjustment of student admissions in these fields is a subjective matter.
    We can conclude that although the primary purpose of the IMESP was to accurately estimate and easily train the needed manpower of the health system (2), it seems that after three decades the MHME is not sufficiently successful in this regard. The simple proof for this statement is the shortages of manpower in some fields and surpluses in some other fields. It seems that the DE of the MHME should take a more highlighted role in policy making and planning the training of health human resources, and by using a holistic view, conduct a strategic plan for it according to current and future health needs of the population. The IMESP had a considerable positive impacts such as repairing the shortage of physicians 3 and 4 decades earlier (4), but it has faced some problems due to subjective calculation of student admission. There are shortages in some fields such as nursing and surpluses in some others such as midwifery and the general physicians (5). In our opinion the important matter is not to integrate the medical education with service provision or not. It makes no difference that the MHME or the Ministry of Sciences and Higher Education performs the medical education task. The matter is that the MHME should take the responsibility and stewardship of the medical education in the country. In other words, the integration may accelerate the task, but it is not the sufficient condition for it.
    One of the main problems that planning student admission is faced with is lack of accurate and reliable statistics. In fact, the MHME has not accurate data on the number of working manpower in various fields and the available number of them on the job market each year due to retirement, death or migration to other countries. Since the physicians have to register in the Nezam Pezeshki Organization (The Medical Association) to get their working license, the data include almost all of them. Yet the data may be over-estimating because there are some physicians that continue to study in a second field other than medicine and work with their second academic degree while the data consider them as physicians. Although there is a similar organization named Nezam Parastary (The Nursing Association) to register the nurses, but being a member of the association is not compulsory for all nurses. So, there are many nurses that work in the private sector and the MHME does not know how many they are. For the other fields there is a similar situation and the available data only is limited to the number of graduates and the workers in the public sector while some graduates should not be considered as work force for the field because some of them after being graduated study another field, work in a different job, or become housewives. On the other hand, some workers work both in public and private sectors.
    Our first recommendation is to create a database in the MHME that includes the details of the graduate people in all fields of medical sciences. The database should work with the national ID code to prevent duplications. It should also include students. Registering in the database must be compulsory, and it should be updated periodically. Such a database can become an important infrastructure for many plans of the MHME. Through such systems, the exact number of active and total work force in each health-related field would be reportable. The average number of people who leave the job market annually, the number of students that will graduate the next year and years later are some potential useful reports of such a system.
    Our second recommendation is creating a comprehensive planning system for admitting students of medical sciences that takes into account all the contributing factors of needed human resources. Such a planning system, in addition to the above mentioned database, requires the cooperation of various deputies of the MHME. Therefore, there is a need for a good stewardship.