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  Background and Objective : Satisfaction is costumer response to an organization success. Costumer satisfaction is used as an important and strategic tool in organization in order to achieve competitive advantage. Thus, higher education institutes increasingly pay attention to satisfying students' expectations as primary costumers. Hence, this study was implemented in order to measure students' satisfaction of educational services quality in Zanjan University of medical sciences.

  Materials and Methods: This study was implemented in Zanjan University of medical sciences in 2009. For implementing the study, the sample 320 of students was selected randomly by stratified sampling. In order to measure services quality (SQ), the questionnaire SERVQUAL was used. In addition to SQ questions, this questionnaire contained 6 questions about overall satisfaction of educational services. Data were analyzed by SSPS 11.5 program and descriptive and analytical statistics such as mean, one-way ANOVA, correlation and multiple regressions were used.

  Results: Mean scores of students' satisfaction of educational SQ was (2.76 ± 1 .06). In context of overall satisfaction of educational services, the largest mean score (3.17) and the least mean score (2.24) were related to faculties of pharmacology and medicine respectively. One-way ANOVA test showed that the observed difference in mean score of overall satisfaction of educational services quality was statistically significant on the basis of faculty (P< 0.001, f = 14.02). Pearson correlation coefficient showed that there was statistically significant positive relation between overall satisfaction and quality of educational services (r = .51), empathy (r = .49) and assurance (r = .46), (p < .01). Multiple regression analysis showed that there was statistically significant positive relation between students overall satisfactions and responsiveness and assurance dimensions (p < .05).

  Conclusion: findings of this study showed that�responsiveness and assurance aspects are more important than other educational SQ aspects�for�satisfying students of educational services quality. Thus, managers, policy makers and lecturers can use results of this research in reallocation of resources and designing strategies of educational services quality improvement.

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A Survey of Students and Academic Members' Views about Marters Evaluation Regarding the Quality of Teaching

Arboni F¹, Nourian A¹, Bakhshodeh H²

Corresponding Author: Arboni F, Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, Zanjan, Iran

Email: arbooni@hotmail.com

 

Background and Objective: 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

Materials and Methods: 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.

Results: 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).

Conclusion: 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.

 

Keywords: Evaluation, Students, Teachers, Quality of education

 

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Background and Objective: 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. 

Material and Methods: 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 students' 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.

Results: 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 students' 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). 

Conclusion: 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.

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Background and Objective: Today, organizations compete for quality services. One of the strategies available to achieve this goal is high quality service. This study aims to measure quality educational services from the viewpoint of master students in Tehran University of Medical Sciences. The study was conducted using SERVQUAL model. Material and Methods: The present study is a descriptive - cross-sectional. The sample consists of 97 master and PhD students. Data was collected with questionnaire and was analyzed with SPPS16 software. Results: Results showed that quality gap existed every five–year of service. The deepest gap was traced after accountability (-1.66 ±0.74) (P = 0.0001). Conclusion: Based on the results planning for quality improvement of educational services should be postgraduate students in line with expectations.

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Background and Objective: Quality of education is the main characteristic of higher education and its improvement depends on the mechanisms of evaluation. Evaluation is also a systematic process for collection, analysis and interpretation of information to study achievement of educational goals. Regarding the necessity of improvement of educational quality especially in medical sciences, the authorities of medical college of shahed university felt obliged to use accreditation model for evaluation and improvement of educational quality in Medical Faculty shahed university. Materials and Methods: Method of this study is applied and descriptive which aims at studying ten factors including mission and goals, management and organizational structure, academic staff, students, education process and learning, courses, educational programs, graduates, premises and facilities of education, research and treatment (laboratory and diagnosis), investigation and non-academic staff, and management. Statistical data were collected from the chairman, deputies, heads of departments, academic staff, students, graduates and employees. To collect the data, we used seven questionnaires whose reliability and validity were considered and confirmed. To judge acceptability of any of the evaluated parameters we used five point Likert scale. Results: of ten factors, one was acceptable, seven relatively acceptable and two were unacceptable. Conclusion: If implemented the results of this study may improve educational quality of medical faculties.

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Background and Objective: Assessing clinical and theoretical education and presenting feedback to educational planners and managers is very important. In assessment, we can rely on conclusions of the collected information if the tools are valid. The purpose of this study is preparation and calibration of valid indexes for assessment of clinical education situation in rehabilitation courses. Material and Method: This study is a qualitative research. Data was collected with library studies, systematic review and focus group. The data was analyzed with content analysis method. Results: Assessment indexes of clinical education situation in rehabilitation courses include 5 themes (student, teacher, management of clinical education, field of clinical education and evaluation of clinical education) and 57 indexes. Conclusion: Obtained indexes provide valid and reliable tools for assessment of situation of clinical education in rehabilitation courses.

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  Background and Objective : Higher education is fundamental for national development. Education quality is an important factor for education output. The present study seeks to delve into investigating the gap between perceptions and expectations of educational service in Management and Medical Information School of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences.

  Materials and Methods: This was a descriptive cross ‐ sectional study. 247 students of Management and Medical Information studying at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences were selected. Data gathering tools were SERVIQUAL questionnaires which include five factors ( tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy).Data analysis was carried out using SPSS 15 software and statistics including absolute ANOVA and t-test were employed.

  Results: The results of the t-test revealed a meaningful difference between the students’ perception and their expectation about 5 factors (tangible elements, Reliability, assurance, accountability, collaboration). The students rated ‘empathy ’as having wide gap (-7, 11) and ‘tangible’ as having the narrowest gap of the 6 factors (-3, 72). The results between gaps revealed all quality factors were significant relative to course and course level (0.0001=p) .

  Conclusion: The results indicated that quality of educational services in the school was minimal, and there was a big gap between expectations and perspectives. Therefore, proper planning to enhance service quality and correct the deficiencies is needed.

 

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  Background and Objective : Evaluation in medical educational is very important. The aim of this study was to compare the view of students and faculty members about teachers' online evaluation at Arak University of Medical Sciences.

  Materials and Methods : This is a cross- sectional study which was carried out with 758 students and 122 professors at Arak University of Medical Sciences in 2011. Data was collected with a reliable and valid questionnaire (consisting of safety, evaluation of environment, accuracy and economic items) with 5-choice Likert scale. T-test was used for data analysis.

  Results : Results showed that the mean score of teachers and students with regard to online teaching method was 62.35 ± 7.30 and 57.89 ± 12.31 respectively and that the difference was significant (p<0/001) .

  Conclusion : Considering the positive attitudes of teachers and students toward online evaluation method, using this method is recommended.

 

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Background and Objective: Affective factors teaching and learning can improve the quality of education and educational evaluation to determine the success rate in achieving goals of the faculty. This study examines the views of Lorestan University of Medical Sciences faculty about the practices, processes and quality of teaching performance in 2013. Material and methods: This study is a descriptive cross sectional study. The questionnaire was based on likert 5 point scale. The questionnaire consisted of three parts of the evaluation process evaluation (9 items) ˛ different methods of teacher evaluation (11 items) and evaluation criteria (24 items). All faculty members, Lorestan University of Medical Sciences, (108 patients) were studied through a questionnaire. Data were analyzed by SPSS 17 software. Result: 72.9% of teachers agreed with the assessment of teaching quality. 19.6% of teachers satisfied from the current trends teaching evaluation. 35.5% of teachers have low evaluation of the impact on their teaching process. 43.3% of teachers moderate effectiveness as an indicator of teaching quality evaluation forms. 41.9% deemed necessary awareness of evaluation results to modify their teaching practices. The highest and lowest scores in teacher evaluation criteria related to motivate students to study and research and introduce students to the texts and educational pamphlets, respectively. Conclusion: The majority of teachers were agreed with teaching evaluation forms as well as the majority stated that the quality of teaching evaluation forms is to be moderate. It is suggested that educational authorities at various levels of training to run a more detailed plan to further steps towards quality education.

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Introduction: The objective structured clinical examination(OSCE) is one of the assessment tools of the final examination in clinical wards of Semnan University of Medical Sciences. The study set out to explore medical student and resident views about the quality of this exam. Methods: In this cross sectional study, a self administered questionnaire was completed by 132 medical students and residents who were assessed at least once by this examination. The outcome measures were student’s opinion about the quality of the exam, quality of the questions and the time for each station and their attitude about the exam as a whole. Results: There was overwhelming acceptance of the OSCE among the residents in comparison to the students (p=0.034). With respect to the quality of the questions, also the residents of higher grades had a better view in comparison to the students (p=0.037) and with respect to the time for each station, the third grade residents had a better opinion (p<0.001). Concerns were expressed regarding the inadequacy of orientation sessions before the examination among the medical students. Conclusion: Student feedback is invaluable in influencing faculty teaching, curriculum direction and appreciation of student opinion. Furthermore evaluation will strengthen the development of OSCE

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The present research intended to study the relationship between faculty members’ prioritizing of their job responsibilities and their performance quality from students’ points of view in Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences as a structural equation model. Study population was all Faculty members and students at Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences and Hygienics. Using simple random sampling, the sample consisted of 108 faculty members and 324 students. Tools of the study included occupational measure of consultant trainers (aver, 2005) and evaluative questionnaire for performance quality of educational bureau members (Mohammadi & zarabi, 1391). After assessing the validity and consistency of tools, data were analyzed by repeated measure variance analysis, On sample t- test and multi- variable regression. Results displayed 1- that the dominant aspects for job responsibilities were research and survey and that there was significant difference between aspects of job responsibilities 2- that, among other aspects of job responsibilities, only the average for professional character and teaching management qualified as acceptable 3- Faculties’ priorities to teaching and supervision was predicator of students’ positive evaluation of their instructional performance and faculties’ priorities to research and social services was predicator of students’ negative evaluation of their instructional performance.

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Background: Human judgments are often vague and it is not easy for people to express their perceptions and expectations about quality of services using an exact numerical value. It is more realistic to use linguistic terms to describe the expectation and perception value. In this paper, combined approach of SERVQUAL and fuzzy logic to evaluate the quality of educational services provided at Islamic Azad University of Qom. Materials & Methods: This study was descriptive and cross-sectional was conducted in 2013. For implementing the study, the sample 365 of students was selected randomly by stratified sampling. Data was collected through standard SERVQUAL questionnaire. Validity of questionnaire was confirmed by experts and its reliability using Cronbach's alpha was 0.84. For analysis of data descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and Wilcoxon tests were used. Results: Comparison between the perceptions and expectations of the students indicated that there were significant differences in all dimensions of educational service quality (P<0.05). The average gap of educational services was 79/0, which represents a negative gap in service quality. The greatest and lowest gap were in the tangibles (-0.90) and responsibility and reliability (-0.74), respectively. The gap between the quality of education in terms of gender, college and field, there was a significant difference (P<0.05). Conclusion: Based on the findings of the study the largest gap was in the tangible factors. It is suggested to enhance the improvement of library resources and increase computer workshops in priority.

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Background: Evaluation is a systematic process of gathering, analysing and interpretation of data for assessment and judgement.This study was aimed to evaluate the efficacy of a workshop regarding exam development on quality of final written exams. Methods: In this semi-experimental study, written final exams of all theoretical courses# 2 were gathered before and after presenting a workshop and a booklet regarding “Standard rules of questions”. Taxonomy, content relevance, and content coverage of exams were analyzed by three lecturers of course# 2 of each department. Other indices such as difficulty and differential coefficients, value of distracter and borderline choices, error coefficient, and considering structural rules were calculated by means of Millman’s checklist, and standard formulae. Independent Samples t. Test, Mann-Whitney U Test, and ANOVA were used to analyze the data. Findings: Before intervention, content relevance and difficulty coefficient were in acceptable levels. Proportion of multiple choice questions, content relevance, and differential coefficient increased after intervention, whereas consideration of structural rules, difficulty coefficient, amount of distracters needing revision, error coefficient, amount of questions needing revision, and coverage relevance decreased. Generally, the intervention just decreased the error coefficient practically. Conclusion: A short- term course on standard rules of question development does not affect quality of exam questions considerably, and continuous education is mandatory in this regard.

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Background and Objective: The importance of education and its role in achieving modern society goals is clear. Appropriate education and student satisfaction can lead to the development of a modern society.  The Aims of this study was to evaluate the educational service quality gap among students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences.

Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2014. Statistical society was students of Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and a sample size of 246 students was selected randomly. Survey instrument was a SERVQUAL questionnaire of 27 questions. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 93% and the test - retest reliability was 86%. Data was analyzed through SPSS software and t‑test, t‑paired test and ANOVA.

Results: The gap in quality of educational services in aspects of assurance, accountability, empathy, reliability and tangibility was -1.375, -1.640, -1.497, -1.332 and -1.994 which was statistically significant (p <0.001). The gap between the students' perceptions and expectations of quality of educational services was -1.570 which was statistically significant (p <0.001).Between perceptions and expectations of students and gender there was not a significant relationship (p> 0.05). The relationship between age of students and their perceptions of the quality of education was significant (p = 0.015).

Conclusion: Due to the wide gap in the field of tangibility and accountability, it seems that policy makers' attention to these two areas will lead to improved quality of educational services.

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Background and Objective: In the recent years, the steady education has confronted with some challenges. Most of the studies estimate that the effectiveness of these programs is moderate; therefore, due to the importance and background of these researches, we assessed the current steady education in a qualitative way via the perspective of general practitioners (GPs).

Materials and Methods: This research with a qualitative approach was done among the Qazvin city s GPs  in 2015. The inductive content analysis was done for 3 focus groupS of discussions (FGD). IN in order to gather the data, a purposive sampling method until data saturation was used. All interviews were recorded,too.

Results: 23 General physicians participated in our study.The Data analysis led to the extraction of 6 main categories, 22 subcategories, 51 sub-codes, and, 67 suggested solutions. The main categories of participants included (2 subcategories), teachers (3 subcategories), policy (5 subcategories), designing  (4 subcategories), subject (3 subcategories) and the  content (2 subcategories).The main problems which were detected among the categories are as follows: participants :  basic learning problems and low motivation of GPs; teachers: low level of statement , being unfamiliar with  difficulties  which GPs face with and not having a certain goal; policy: exclusion of GPs ideas, low motivation of universities in holding programs with high quality, inadequate infrastructure in  training ,the inappropriate time of holding programs ,paying no attention to evaluation results and also the results that the teachers were not informed of them.; design: lack of appropriate technology, lack of target group level, boring and inappropriate form of holding; subject: mismatching the issues with needs  for general physicians, lack of focus neither  on the subject of the application, nor on a variety of topics; content: not practical and not updated program content and lack of coordination between the teachers in the delivery of the content.

Conclusion: The entire process of the steady education from needs assessment until the program requires a necessary revision and intervention. Increasing capabilities of teachers, concordance of teaching objectives with medical needs, teaching methods revision, providing structured feedback to the organizers and teachers seems to be very essential. Moreover, the use of more realistic Indicators for evaluation of the program, such as improving clinical performance must be considered, too.

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Background & Objective: Competency and teaching quality of professors play a key role in the quality of active learning in students. The present study aimed to predict the components of competency and teaching quality of professors regarding active learning in the students of Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences, Iran.
Materials and Methods: In this study, 359 students were selected via stratified random sampling, and Cochran’s formula was used to determine the sample size. Validity of three questionnaires was assessed using content validity and face validity, and the reliability was determined at the Cronbach’s alpha of 0.853 for the questionnaire of professors’ competency, 0.894 for the questionnaire of teaching quality, and 0.938 for the questionnaire of active learning in students. Data analysis was performed using parametric tests.
Results: Variables of professors’ competency, teaching quality, and active learning in students were estimated to be above average at the significance level of 0.001 in the affiliated schools. A significant association was observed between teaching quality and professors’ competency at the significance of 0.001 and correlation-coefficient of 0.65. In addition, there was a significant association between teaching quality and active learning at the significance of 0.001 and correlation-coefficient of 0.61. Our findings indicated a linear correlation between the variables of competency and teaching quality compared to active learning (F=126.958; P=0.0001).
Conclusion: According to the results, there seems to be a significant correlation between teaching quality and professors’ competency, which could predict the level of active learning in students
 

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Background & Objective: Higher education is an important institution providing education and human resources, which requires special attention in terms of the quality of services if it is to be preserved. The present study aimed to assess the perceptions of students toward the quality of educational services at Zahedan University of Medical Sciences (ZAUMS), Iran during the academic year 2017-2018.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional, descriptive-analytical study was conducted on 477 students, who were selected randomly using the Krejcie-Morgan table for the estimation of sample size and stratified-proportional sampling from the students of six schools at ZAUMS. Data were collected using the adjusted standardized questionnaire for the quality of educational services (SERVQUAL) model. The questionnaire consisted of two sections, including demographic data and quality assessment of educational services based on the SERVQUAL model. Data analysis was performed in SPSS version 21 using descriptive and analytical statistics, such as independent t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA).
Results: The assessment of the perceptions of the students toward the quality of university services indicated that 11.2%, 87%, and 1.8% of the students considered the service quality to be poor, average, and favorable, respectively. However, the quality assessment of the educational services based on gender, marital status, age, type of accommodation, and schools indicated no statistically significant correlations (P>0.05). The difference observed in the average scores of the quality assessment obtained by the native students was considered statistically significant (P=0.004).
Conclusion: According to the results, the students considered the quality of the current educational services at ZAUMS to be average. Therefore, the authorities must implement efficient plans in order to improve the quality of educational services.
 

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Background & Objective: Evaluation of satisfaction of students with educational services of universities can show the gap between their expectations and the current state. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the quality gap of educational services from the viewpoint of residency students of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences in 2017-2018.
Materials and Methods: This analytical and cross-sectional study was performed on 188 residency students selected by census sampling. Data were collected using SERVQUAL, and data analysis was carried out by SPSS version 24 using descriptive statistics and paired t-test. 
Results: In this study, 106 subjects (56%) were female and 82 participants (46%) were male. In terms of age, 122 individuals were below the age of 25 (65%), whereas 66 residency students were above 35 years (35%). According to paired t-test, there was a difference between expectations and perceptions of residency students from the quality of educational services and a negative service gap in five dimensions (P=0.001, t>1.97). In this regard, the highest and lowest gaps were related to the dimensions of reliable (-2.43) and physical dimension and tangible (-2.1), respectively.
Conclusion: From the perspective of residency students of Zanjan University of Medical Sciences, there was a negative gap between expectations of quality of educational services with the current state.

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Background & Objective: The most technical and basic function of higher education is teaching and education, and providing high-quality teaching requires a certain level of competencies observed in the main custodian of teaching in universities- i.e. the faculty members. This study aimed to evaluate the faculty members’ competencies in high-quality teaching.
Materials and Methods: This was a qualitative research performed on 12 academic education experts selected by purposeful, theoretical sampling method. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with the participants, and data analysis was performed applying the thematic analysis technique. The validity of the research was confirmed based on the opinions of interviewees and the results of data source multidimensional method. In addition, reliability of the coding process was approved applying the retest method and intra-subject agreement (the agreement between two coders). The implementation of interviews’ content and their primary analysis was associated with the identification of initial codes or concepts and classification of similar codes in specific categories to achieve the main categories. Ultimately, a name was chosen for each category based on the general concept of the codes.
Results: In this study, the competencies required for faculty members were determined to provide high-quality teaching. According to academic education experts, the competencies of professional, specialized, social-communicative, ethical, interestedness in teaching, and personality traits are required to achieve high-quality teaching.
Conclusion: According to the results of the study, choosing the right person to take on the serious task of teaching requires care and consideration of professional, specialized, social-communicative, ethical, and interestedness in teaching.

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Background & Objective: The quality of functions and the academic environment of universities have been considered to be significant challenges in higher education, which have been addressed using several approaches. The present study aimed to assess the determinants of the quality of academic and scientific functions based on the Glassick's six criteria for scholarship.
Materials and Methods: This study was conducted with a mixed qualitative-quantitative approach. The qualitative segment was based on content analysis via semi-structured interviews with 20 higher education professionals in the four fields of medical sciences, humanities, basic sciences, and engineering. Data collection continued until data saturation, and data analysis was performed using the deductive reasoning method. In the quantitative segment, the face and content validity of the questionnaire was initially assessed from the perspective of five medical and higher education specialists. The construct validity of the researcher-made instrument was evaluated by 300 faculty members of Shiraz University and Shiraz University of Medical Sciences with the completion of 265 questionnaires. In addition, the reliability of the instrument was confirmed at the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.96, and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were performed in SPSS version 22 and LISREL version 8.8.
Results: In the qualitative content analysis, 153 open codes were summarized in six main classes, 13 intermediate components, and 29 items. In the EFA, the highest factor loading belonged to the 'knowledge dissemination' items, such as the presence of an established mechanism for information distribution, recording and maintaining of knowledge and expertise, and individual beliefs for knowledge dissemination. The other EFA factors included effective results, preparedness, methodicalness, purposefulness, and self-criticism. The fit index of the CFA was also confirmed by the CFI, GFI, and NFI with the values of less than 0.90.
Conclusion: In addition to established mechanisms, knowledge dissemination is influenced by latent factors such as trust, interaction, and internal commitment. Moreover, knowledge dissemination was most commonly affected by communication as it also has an influential factor in the development of other components due to its impact on the flow of knowledge and information in an organization.