Iranian Journal of Medical Education

 
Introduction: For reasons such as the dominance of quantity-oriented approach, traditional educational systems mostly focused on education and its development; however, these systems are now shifting toward research and finding new ways to understand the learning process, its procedures and styles. The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ attitudes toward self-directed learning at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences.
Methods: This descriptive-survey study was performed on all students of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. A sample of 361 students was selected using proportionate stratified sampling. Measuring tool was a researcher-made questionnaire with an overall Cronbach’s alpha coefficient at 0.79. Data were analyzed using descriptive tests and chi-square test.
Results: The most frequent elements were “decision-making by the learner” (4.78±0.79) in the category of perception of self-directed learning, “feeling more confident in one’s ability” (4.91± 0.39) in the category of how to affect learning, “lack of knowledge” (4.78 ± 0.78) in the category of barriers and “good lecture” (4.97 ± 0.51) in the category of motivational factors.
Conclusion: Results indicated that students were not fully aware of what was expected from them on self-directed learning. Individual characteristics played an important role in determining self-directed learning efficiency and lack of knowledge was one of the major obstacles.