Journal of Medical Education Development
Volume:3 Issue: 5, 2011

The goal of evaluation is to promote and correct the teaching methods and activities of academic members. The results of evaluation as feedback for teachers to learn their strengths and weaknesses are necessary. Thus, we conducted this study to understand the impact of assessment on the improvement of teaching medical students and professors This is a descriptive study. We used opinions of 276 students and 123 faculty members for this research. Data collection instrument consisted of a questionnaire with demographic questions and 25 phrases based on the goals of study. Grading was based on Likert Scale. The data was analyzed by descriptive statistics. Majority of samples were medical students and academic members. The results showed that teachers (50%) and students (39%) agreed on the evaluation of the performance of professors. There was a significant difference between the five dimensions among students and faculty members (p=0.05). The findings confirm the view that teachers and students evaluation largely improves teaching in various aspects. Evaluation can be used as a criterion for professional growth and advancement of teaching and learning process the evaluation.

Background and Objectivs: The ability to respond quickly and effectively to a cardiac arrest situation depends on health personnel being competent in the emergency cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The aim of this study was to investigate the extent to which health students acquire and retain CPR psychomotor skills following CPR training. A quasi-experimental design was used. A pre-test, CPR training programme, post-test, and re-test were conducted. CPR psychomotor skills were assessed by observing CPR performance on a skill-meter manikin. The findings showed progress in students CPR psychomotor performance following a 4 h CPR training programme. In pretest, none of the students passed the CPR skills assessment. Students’ skills were improved in post-test, and re-test, which clearly indicated a positive effect of training CPR psychomotor skills. The study findings present strong evidence to support the critical role of CPR training in ensuring that students progress to become competent and confident responders in the event of a cardiac related emergency.

Clinical learning environment plays an important role in clinical learning of nursing students. Student's perception of the clinical learning environment with what exists in reality is different and they look for the more desirable learning environment. Assessing nursing student's perception and exploring the effects of undergraduate curriculum is one of the most important steps in the continuing development of nursing education. The purpose of this study was to determine pre-registration student nurses perception of the clinical learning environment during clinical placements This study was descriptive cross-sectional. 217 baccalaureate nursing students from Tehran nursing & midwifery faculty participated in this study. For data collection, "clinical learning environment inventory" was used that contains 42 item in six areas, and completed by the students on the last day of the placement. Data was analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive and inferential statistic. The T-test showed that there were differences between mean scores in the assessed areas according to the nursing student's perception of the clinical learning environment and this difference with demographic variables (years and clinical ward) were statistically significant (p˂0.05). The results of this study showed that nursing students do not have positive perception of the clinical learning environment. Therefore, the quality of clinical learning and student satisfaction should be improved by a more coherent planning.

The unemployment of graduates is one of the main economic and social challenges. The aim of this study was to investigate the employment status of midwifery and nursing graduates of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences. In this cross-sectional study all nursing and midwifery graduates who were graduated between years of 1383-87 were studied. Data was collected with questionnaires. Data analysis was performed by utilizing SPSS statistical software on 203 filled questionnaires. The results indicated that 27.55% of midwifery graduates were unemployed, 4.08% were probationally hired, 18.37% had contracts and 15.31% were hired through human resources plan. 11.43 percent of nursing graduates were unemployed, 39.05% hired through human resources plan, and more than a third of them had yearly or probation contracts. More than 70 percent of graduates worked in public centers and the majority was working in hospitals. The results represent high rates of unemployment among midwifery graduates, and lack of job-safety status for nursing graduates. On the other hand, the role of private centers in this regard is very small.

Higher education plays an important role in economic, social and cultural development of community. For this important mission, higher education has increasingly paid attention to services quality during the two last decades. Hence, this study was conducted in order to evaluate educational services quality in Zanjan University of medical sciences. This study was conducted in Zanjan University of Medical Sciences in 2009. For conducting the study, a sample of 320 of students was selected randomly by stratified sampling. For collecting data related to student's expectations and perceptions, the questionnaire SERVQUAL was used. Data was analyzed by SSPS 11.5 program and descriptive and analytical statistics such as mean, paired t ‑test and one-way ANOVA were used. The largest mean score (3.45) and the least mean score (2.05) of students perceptions were related to recording and keeping documents with high reliability and allocating time to deal with educational issues in responsiveness dimension respectively. The largest and the least mean score of students perceptions of educational services quality were for reliability (3.16) and responsiveness (2.56) dimensions respectively. Gap in mean scores of student's expectations and perceptions in all of the educational services quality dimensions was statistically significant (p <. 001).Difference in mean scores of educational services quality was statistically significant with regard to the faculty (P< 0.001, f = 24.22). On the basis of findings of this study, the largest gap of quality was in the responsiveness dimension. Improving responsiveness, depend on factors such as: empowerment of academic staff and employees, accessibility of students to academic staff and managers, allotting enough time for consultation and solving educational problems. Thus, managers and policy makers can use results of this research in designing strategies of educational services quality improvement.

Retraining is an important way for health workers keeping them up to date, and need assessment and evaluation are the essential principles for enhancing the efficiency of those under training. The aim of this study was to determine the viewpoints of midwives employed in Zanjan University of Medical Science towards continuing education programs. In this analytical-descriptive study, the number of samples based on the census was 43.Data gathering tool was a series of multiple choice questions about demographic data, priorities and educational needs which were designed based on Likert Scale and the aim of participation in this courses. Also some problems and suggestions were in the form of open questions that were filled and collected by our colleagues in one phase. Descriptive statistics and Spss14 software were utilized for analyzing information. 35 out of 43 midwives who were working in the centers, participated in this research. Their average age was 34.3±4.1; their mean years of service was 124 month; the average number of courses they had taken part was 16; and the duration of these courses was about 134 hours. More than 75% of them had attended in different retraining courses just inside the Zanjan province. 61.7% of them took part in unrelated training courses with different reasons such as interest and gaining job credits, 79.4% for improving their educational levels, 26.4% for reviewing lessons and 14% for gaining job credits. Most of their educational needs were new drugs and treatment methods in midwifery, new techniques and equipment of health care in topology and emergency centers. Major problems with these courses were inefficient proficiency of professors. There were many suggestions for holding regular and frequent courses in intensive form similar to medical courses. In view of the fact that midwives as a member of medical and health group have a significant role in improving the country's health and with respect to goals of educational courses, continuous retrainings and updating participant's information for meeting personal learning needs and improving practice along with constant changes, awareness of authorities about requirements of health care personnel seems to be necessary.

This study evaluated English for the Students of Medicine (II) (ESM) (Tahririan and Mehrabi, 2007) as one of the textbooks used for teaching English to the Iranian students of medicine. This research was performed on the basis of a number of medical student's needs analysis studying at an Iranian Medical Sciences University and one English language teacher viewpoints. It intended to identify the specific needs of medical students in a learning context and investigate whether the textbook addressed those needs. Student's profile and needs analysis forms were used to identify the language needs of 50 students as well as a teacher textbook evaluation questionnaire to elicit the teacher's attitudes towards some aspects of the textbook. The data was subjected to descriptive statistics and inferential statistics analysis. The results of the student's needs analysis indicated that English for the Students of Medicine (II) did not completely meet the student's specific needs regarding language level, some of the language skills, sub-skills, preferred learning styles, preferred type of interaction, preferred type of language, and communicative activities. Based on the results of the study, we recommend authorities to replace English for students of Medicine with a more attractive textbook to meet the needs of the students of medicine and allied fields.

Horizontal integration means integration in a phase of curriculum. A new program in externship phase results in more satisfaction of medical students. But there is no objective evaluation of the new program. The aim of this study is the evaluation of this change on basis of some objective outcome. in this study 214 medical students consisting of 3 years before and 3 years after the new program implementation were compared. Primary outcomes were average score of externship phase, percentage of passing pre-internship exam, and national ranking of ZUMS in pre-internship exam. Quantitative variables were compared using a t-test and qualitative variables were compared using the Chi-square test. A significance of P less than 5percent considered for all statistical tests. 214 of medical students were investigated (125 before and 89 after intervention). Average score of externship phase were 15.76 ± 1.15 vs 16.34 ± 1.09 (P< 0.001). The result showed 0.56 increments in average score. The rate of pre-internship passing exam increased from 92.8 to 100% after the intervention. National ranking improved from 19 to 11 among 45 medical universities. This study showed improvement in student's outcomes in both national and internal evaluation.