نشریه راهبردهای آموزش در علوم پزشکی
سال پنجم شماره 3 (پیاپی 17، پاییز 1391)

Nowadays, the aim of the science education is to train individuals who can adapt to different conditions, contemplate in a flexible manner, have creative thinking, solve problem multi-dimensionally, use knowledge process skills while solving the problems, consider the world by a scientist’s point of view, embrace others respectfully and tolerate different ideas. The present study was conducted aiming at investigating the relationship between critical thinking and its dimensions with happiness and social self-esteem in students. This descriptive cross-sectional study was undertaken on 200 postgraduate students in Kangavar Payam-e-Noor University in 2011. The instruments used were Oxford happiness questionnaire, Ricketts critical thinking questionnaire (2003), and the Lawson, Marshall, & McGrath social self esteem. Data were analyzed using SPSS 18 statistical software and independent T-test, Pearson correlation coefficient and stepwise regression analysis. The highest mean among variables was associated with social self-esteem (162±27.62) and the lowest one was related to the growth (30±5.04). There was a positive and significant correlation between research variables. No significant relationship was observed just between growth and happiness. Critical thinking and its dimensions (except for growth) were able to predict happiness as well as social self-esteem. Critical thinking play principal role in happiness and social self-esteem in college students.

Nowadays, widespread use of modern technology and as a result, the need to further education followed by higher costs, has led educational centers and companies to use educational modern solutions. One of these solutions is electronic education, known as E-learning. The purpose of this study is to identify and categorize the characteristics of a desirable E-Learning system from the viewpoint of Virtual Iranian Universities’ students based on the Kano model.

This developmental study was conducted on all graduate and undergraduate students of 17 active university E-learning centers in Iran from January to March 2012. Totally, 459 subjects were selected from among 17 virtual Iranian educational centers using simple random sampling method. Excel software and frequency table weighted mean were used to analyze the Kano model.

Effective designing, high quality of internet, and easy use factors are respectively the most effective basic factors in creating satisfaction among university students. Likewise, the factors like the lack of anxiety, interaction with lesson contents, self-exploitation, interaction with other university students and masters, and variety in evaluation are respectively the most practical factors effective on the level of students’ satisfaction. Moreover, factors of students attitude, flexibility in offering educational content, the quality of educational content, teachers’ attitude and their timely answers are respectively the most the important motivational factors affecting the level of students satisfaction.

According to the fact that factors like student’s attitude, flexibility in offering educational content, the quality of educational content, teachers’ attitude and their punctual answers are among the most important motivational factors for students, E-learning (electronic education) institutes must more emphasize on these factors.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the quality of faculty members’ teaching based on Mycourse scale components (the techniques of classroom management, appropriate class behavior, focus and maintain the attention to the lesson, prepare a review and exercise, inquirer skills, using different methods of training, establishing a positive atmosphere in the class and the rate of problem-solving strategies expression in the class) from students point of view. This study is a descriptive survey. The study population consisted of all female undergraduate students studying 7th and 8th semesters in the second academic year of 2010-11. Among them, 90 students were randomly selected. For data collection, Mycourse scale questionnaire was used. Data analysis was done at the descriptive and inferential levels using SPSS 20 statistical software. Considering the items scoring range (0 to 5) and calculation of the components’ total score using these ranges, the assumed mean of the population considered to be 2.5. From the students’ perspective, the components of the rate of the realization of classroom management techniques, the rate of maintaining an appropriate behavior in class, the amount of preparing the review and exercise, the level of exhibiting inquirer skills and the amount of establishing a positive atmosphere in the class by faculty member were at an average level, and the components of concentration and maintaining attention, and the amount of expressing the problem solving strategies were at a high level and the component of the amount of using various methods of training was at a low level. The quality of faculty members’ teaching of Shahed University is evaluated to be an average level in terms of the majority of Mycourse scale components (five components) from the students’ point of view.

With regard to the fundamental effect of traing and education in the students’ sociablity, preparing the young generation to play citizenship role in the local, national and global community is an issue which is expected of this educational entity. The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the content of social sciences textbooks in line with the determined objectives and the degree of presenting the citizenship training skills in such textbooks. This content analysis study was conducted in social sciences textbooks of middle school courses in 2010-11. Based on sectioning or cutting procedure, social sciences textbooks’ contents of secondary school was categorized and divided into four sections including text, image, question and activity. Shannon entropy method was used for data analysis. After normalizing the data, information load of each category was calculated and finally, importance coefficience of each one of categories was estimated using categories’ information load. From among the 3149 units calculated in the content of the secondary school’s social sciences textbooks, just 99 units were allocated to the special citizenship skill. The highest rate of attention belonged to the Self-awareness with 31 units. No reference was made to “appropriate use of civil facilities”. Although formal curricula, especially social sciences play substantial role in the realization of citizenship training, little attention has been paid to the indexes pertinent to citizenship skills in the social sciences curricula content.

Clinical evaluation of university students is highly correlated with their acquisition of skill. Clinical evaluation of nursing students is the important and often complex responsibility of nursing trainers. The present study was conducted aiming at comparing the methods of the evaluation of nursing student's performance.

This descriptive-comparative study was conducted in 2006. The population under study was the last-semester undergraduates studying at nursing faculties of two medical sciences universities A and B in Tehran. 105 students were selected (20 Medical Sciences "A" and 85 of Medical Sciences "B") using purposive sampling method and included in the study. Data gathering tool was researcher-made questionnaire. Data was analyzed using SPSS13 software and using descriptive and inferential statistics. Chi square test, Fisher's exact test and independent T-test were used.

There was a significant difference between two universities regarding the evaluation of students performance by student presence, explaining the criteria of clinical performance evaluation at the beginning of the course, adjustment of the criteria of accessing to the educational objectives with student, providing information of scores resulting from student's clinical performance evaluation, using the evaluation itself, assessment of the ability of student before beginning of the semester, observing the student's behavior during the implementation of the procedure and preparing and setting the criteria of accessing to the educational objectives by clinical trainers.

95% of students at the medical sciences university "A" considers the clinical evaluation process traditional and 5% considers it new, while at the medical sciences university "B", 41.18% of students considers the evaluation method traditional and 58.82% considers it new. Moreover, there is a statistical significant difference between the clinical evaluation approaches of two universities.

In the present world in which knowledge is constantly changing and developing, and dealing with new and novel concepts is an important aspect in confronting with patients, self-directed learning skills are essential for success of learners in the medical profession. The present study was conducted aiming at investigating the self-directed learning readiness of medical students (basic sciences, pre-clinical, and clerkship levels). In this descriptive analytical study, 182 medical students (basic sciences, pre-clinical, and clerkship levels) were selected using random-stratified sampling from among Students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences in February to March 2012. The research tool was Fischer’s Self-directed Learning Readiness Scale (SDLRS) with age, gender, diploma Grade Point Average (GPA), basic science score, the educational degree and average of lessons before participation in the study. Data was analyzed using SPSS 19 Software and independent T-test, Pearson correlation coefficient and Cohen statistics. Male students enjoyed better self-management skill than female students and had better self-directed learning grades. There was no significant relationship between personal and professional characteristics and self-directed learning skills. Self-management skill and also the self-directed learning total score differ in male and female students, observing in better status in male students. Student's personal and professional characteristics have no significant effect on their self-directed learning skills. Students still prefer to learn the academic materials through activities and tasks which are guided by their teachers.

The globalization origin is an area rather than education, however, education due to its mutual and deep relationship with different wisdom areas and human life elements is perforce to be affected by globalization. The main goal of the present study is to investigate the role of communicative, political, service and university strategies in the internationalization of universities and higher education institutions from the faculty members’ viewpoints based on gender and university degree. This descriptive-survey study was conducted in all 570 faculty members’ of Shahid Beheshti University in Iran academic years of 2011-12. 205 faculty members were selected as the participants of the study using stratified sampling method. The research instrument was a researcher-made questionnaire based on the Likert five-option scale and included 32 items in four communicative (8 items), political (7 items), service (6 items) and university (11 items) strategies. Parametric statistic tests including one-sample t-test, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA and Scheffe’s test were used for data analysis using SPSS 16 softeware. No significant difference was observed between the opinions of male and female faculty members regarding the strategies effective in internationalization of universities and higher education institutions. The difference of the faculty members with different academic degrees regarding the effect of political strategy on internationalization of universities was not significant, while, this difference was significant for communicative, political, service and university strategies. From the viewpoints of the Shahid Beheshti University's faculty members, the use of communicative, political, service and university strategies has an effective role in the Internationalization of Universities and higher education institutions in Iran.

Research in education includes the most extensive and sensitive area of humanities research. The education, as an infrastructure and model of society development has a crucial and delicate role in all aspects. In addition, the complex nature of teaching and learning activities increases by far the level of education difficulty. This situation reveals the role of supportive mechanism such as research to develop the education functions and guarantee the activities in the given institution. The aim of this study was to introduce the teacher-oriented research as a new paradigm in educational Research. This type of research, with its capacity, may change the teacher training trend and internalization and play an essential role in the teaching-learning area. The subject of research in education embraces a variety of paradigms. Teacher-oriented research is among the new paradigm in educational research area which is witness of teacher's professional needs for teaching management as well as fundamental approaches for removing the gap between researches and training activity.

Providing a comprehensive definition of nursing informatics and areas embracing it is essential for nurses, since according the given definition, nurses find their work's responsibilities and principles. Moreover, an accurate definition of nursing informatics specifies the position of this discipline for the other staffs of health-treatment group. The aim of this article is to introduce nursing informatics and its role in care, education and research areas. In order to find out the studies and resources related to nursing informatics, beside library study, Ovid, Proquest, Science direct and Pubmed and Jihad-e Daneshgahi's scientific information database (SID) were used. English articles search was done from 1976 to 2007 and Persian articles search was performed from 1986 to 2009 using some keywords including informatics, nursing informatics and information system. At the end, 42 articles and books were selected to review the texts in the field of nursing informatics. Scientific nursing informatics is a combination of the process of nursing and information pertinent to it, the management of nursing information and the other information processing. Nursing informatics is applicable in the care, education and research domains.

Cooperation known as involvement in the decision making process, causes increased efficiency in the work and multi-dimensional development. The educational centers may not just rely on manager's ability, capability and intelligence. All teachers and employees of educational centers play a critical and influential role in satisfaction programs and learning of learners as well as the activities for the improvement and continuous promotion of quality. Thus regarding the progress and improvement of the learner's learning, an educational center shall provide an environment in which all teachers and learners do their best to improve duties and responsibilities directed toward deepening the learning activity. Therefore managers shall change their viewpoint toward organization of affaires. The present paper was conducted aiming at elaborating the main principles of educational leadership, leadership stylistics at different situations, and explaining the major ideas in the distributed leadership which enjoy an efficient role in the improvement of the learner's learning quality.

Leaders shall combine a variety of different leadership styles and direct the educational center in various situations efficiently. Moreover, by revising the learning system through changing the individual into group responsibility, leaders should put the educational center in its appropriate direction. Group effort and distributed leadership have higher efficiency compared to individual leadership.