Iranian Journal of Medical Education

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Introduction. Transition from the student’s role to the professional role, as an important stage in the nursing career, is of considerable importance. Lack of readiness in new graduate nurses for transition to their professional roles and joining the clinical setting brings about unfavorable physical and psychological reactions that act as a barrier for adaptation to their new position. This study has been conducted to make an understanding of the new graduate nurses’ experiences about their own readiness to start their new roles as a professional nurse. Methods. This was a qualitative, phenomenological research, carried out with the participation of 9 new graduate nurses. Data collection was done through in-depth unstructured interview Dieklemann method was used for data analysis. Results. Four themes emerged during data analysis: professional competency, self-esteem, colleagues’ expectation and emotional distress. Conclusion. The findings of this study, which were the lived experiences of the participants, indicated that most of them had experienced some degrees of lack of readiness for entering the new settings. It is suggested to revise the nursing curriculum and provide appropriate educational programs to help graduate nurses in getting ready for their new roles.

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Introduction: Learning style as a whole is less regarded in nursing education. This study was conducted to explore, describe, and illustrate students' perceptions and experiences of learning style. The multiplicity feature of students' learning style in theoretical courses is presented in this article. Methods: In this qualitative study, 16 bachelor and master students in different academic semesters were selected through purposeful sampling and interviewed using deep and semi-structured interviews. All interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed and then analyzed using constant comparison based on Strauss and Corbin's method. Results: Students' learning style in theoretical courses as the main theme comprised 8 sub-themes including learning through question and answer learning through example, story, and objective instances (visualizing or exemplifying intellectually) observational or visual learning learning through organizing the content learning through practice and homework learning through active participation and cooperation learning through making to think and get motivated and, learning through listening and note-taking. Conclusion: Students make use of different learning styles or a combination of them based on the type of content, environment, and educational situation. Students' learning style is highly influenced by instructors teaching style who are more focused on their teaching style and completing their course syllabus. Nursing instructors, students, and curriculum planners could use the introduced styles in this study in order to modify and promote the quality of nursing education.

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Introduction: The prosperity of nursing educational programs depends on the efficiency and sufficiency of clinical experiences. One of the most important factors recognized in this field is learning environment. In this study, different aspects of clinical environment have been evaluated from students' viewpoints. Methods: All interns attaining clinical experiences in the wards of pediatrics, neurosurgical ICU, recovery, surgical ICU, surgical emergencies, men medical emergencies, and obstetrics and gynecology took part in this descriptive cross-sectional study. Data gathering tool was a 50 item questionnaire developed through combining two questionnaires of clinical learning environment scale and clinical learning environment and supervision. Students assessed their clinical environment by completing this questionnaire during the second semester of 2006-2007 academic year. Data was analyzed by SPSS software using ANOVA and Post-hoc tests in order to compare the means of the ranks. Results: The mean of given ranks to the learning environment of different wards varied from 1.4 to 4.1 out of five. Four wards of surgical emergencies, male medical emergencies, pediatrics and recovery received a score of 3 or less while, other 3 wards had a score between 3 and 4. The evaluated wards were different in 6 of the variables including management pattern of ward administrator, learning in the ward, the commitment of nursing supervisor, the manner of communication with patient, the relationship between personnel and students, and students' satisfaction. But, no significant difference was observed in nursing students' percep-tion of the ward's atmosphere, the status of nursing care, and interpersonal and supervision relationships in different wards. Conclusion: From the students' viewpoints, learning environment and its related variables vary in different wards. More attention has to be paid to the quality improvement of different wards.

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Introduction: Divergent results are reported from studies on PowerPoint exploitation in teaching. With regard to the existing conflicts, this study was conducted to investigate nursing and midwifery students' experiences and views concerning using PowerPoint by lecturers. Methods: This qualitative study was performed using six individual interviews and two sessions of group discussion with the participation of 12 students in Kashan University of Medical Sciences. In each session, students described their experiences and views about the way teachers used PowerPoint and its impact on their learning. The interviews and discussions were recorded and transcribed, then analyzed using content analysis method. Results: Two main categories emerged from data including "the nature of PowerPoint" and "PowerPoint application culture". The second category encompassed subcategories of "correct application", "incorrect application", and "consequences of incorrect application". Participants recognized PowerPoint as an educa-tional instrument which could be used properly or improperly. Based on their viewpoints, "correct application" embraces purposeful usage of PowerPoint, integrated with other teaching methods which can lead to deep understanding of teaching content. In contrast, "incorrect application" entails rapidity in presentation, slide overuse and illustration of slides with improper structure and content, without consider-ing students' learning. This method causes tiredness and distraction as well as inattention to lesson and lack of time for deliberation in students, and reduces their interaction with teacher. Conclusion: Although proper and accurate application of PowerPoint may prove helpful in having attractive teaching and improving learning, its overuse and improper use by teachers causes the decrease in student's interaction with the teacher and consequently leads to student's aversion with this educational instrument.

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Introduction: In spite of the significance of achievement actualization in the development of educational quality, little investigation has been done in this regard. University administrators have a minute knowledge about students’ achievement fulfillment and the factors influencing this issue. Therefore, this study was performed to investigate the association of personal characteristics and educational experiences of the students with their academic achievements. Methods: This descriptive correlational study was conducted on the ‏students of Shahid Sadoughi Medical University within 2011-2012 academic years. Students were selected through random stratified sampling based on gender and discipline (n=300). The research tool was ‏ the college students’ ‏experiences questionnaire (CSEQ). Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regression. Results: ‏All three dimensions of college‏ students’ experiences including perceptions of quality of environment, quality of‏ effort, and social integration are significant anticipators of their‏ academic achievements‏ respectively and predict 0.43 of achievements variance. In addition, students’ experiences inpredicting their academic achievement differ considering gender, ‏major, and educational level it means that experience dimensions in male and female students predicted 0.38 and 0.31 of the achievement, respectively. Moreover, all dimensions of the experiences of health students predicted 0.31, allied health medicine students 0.38, nursing and midwifery students 0.43, medical students 0.22, and dental students 0.18 of achievement variance. The predictability rate for bachelors, masters, and graduate students were 0.45, 0.33, and 0.42, respectively. Conclusion: ‏Purposeful planning for promoting students' participation in on-campus activities as well as interaction with administratory personnel can affect students’ efforts and ground for fulfillment of their and non-intellectual achievements in an acceptable level. This not only can improve the efficacy of educational systems, but also helps students’ improvement regarding their educational objectives, individual promotion, and social and professional qualification

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Introduction: Burnout is a negative state of physical, emotional and mental exhaustion, accompanied by a deep sense of work failure. Therefore, it is necessary to identify factors influencing it. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the quality of learning experience and academic burnout and achievement among students of Kerman University of Medical Sciences.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional, descriptive and correlational research. The population included all students of Kerman University of Medical Sciences in 2014 from among 303 were selected randomly as the sample. Data collection tools were quality of learning experience and academic burnout questionnaires and the students’ GPA. A one-way ANOVA, independent samples t-test, post hoc test (Bonferroni and Dunnett) and Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients tests were used to analyze the data.

Results: Mean scores of quality of learning experience and academic burnout were 32.82±6.78 (out of 60) and 43.90±7.57 (out of 75), respectively. The GPA of the sample was 16.37±1.47. A significant difference was found between the quality of learning experience scores and academic failure dimension of academic burnout (P<0.05, r=-0.23); however, it was not significantly correlated with academic achievement (P=0.83, r=0.012).

Conclusion: The findings indicated the necessity to improve learning conditions in universities so that students can have higher level learning experiences. Moreover, it is suggested that academic burnout, especially the self-efficacy dimension which was correlated with learning experience, be reduced.

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Introduction: Appropriate clinical environment has an important role in preparing students to use learned knowledge in practice by providing learning opportunities. With regard to the recent complexities of clinical teaching, sensitivity to various environmental factors, recent changes in clinical environments and multiple roles of clinical faculty, a comprehensive study of this phenomenon seemed necessary. Therefore, the aim of this study was to explain emergency medicine faculty members’ experiences of clinical training environments.
Methods: This qualitative study utilizes a conventional content analysis method. Data were collected through purposive sampling, semi-structured individual interviews with the emergency medicine faculty members of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, and field observations in 2017-18 academic year. The data were analyzed in MAXQDA using the inductive method. Open codes were first extracted and classified into subcategories that, in turn, were organized under the main categories based on their meaning similarities.
Results: Three main categories and six subcategories were extracted: structure and characteristics of the emergency department trainings (administrative support, physical structure), clinical reasoning methods (autonomic, automatic), and processing of the clinical learning environment (formal teachings, informal teachings).
Conclusion: The results of this study can help managers and curriculum planners better understand the process of faculty members’ perception of clinical learning environments. A deeper understanding of these perceptions can improve the faculty members’ perception of these environments and consequently, students can be guided toward developing their personal and professional talents and competencies.
 

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Introduction: Future research is an interdisciplinary study that can influence all sciences. Students are Future human resources for health systems; whose futures research ability can be improved through education over the years. The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between future research ability and quality of learning experiences of medical students of Mashhad in 2018.
Methods: In this descriptive correlational study, the research population was all students of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, 370 of whom were selected through two-stage stratified random sampling. Data collection tools included validity and reliability questionnaires of Parsa et al.'s future research ability and Neumann's quality of learning experiences. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA, multiple regression and Spearman correlation tests.
Results: Students' future research ability was slightly higher than average (138.5±24.5) and Mean quality of learning experiences was moderate (34.2±7.1). There was a direct and significant correlation between the dimensions of futuristic ability and the dimensions of the quality of learning experiences that the severity of this relationship was weak (p<0.01, r>0).
Conclusion: Given the weak relationship between students' futuristic skill and the quality of their learning experiences, there are likely to be stronger factors that can predict or enhance students' futuristic skill. Therefore, more studies are recommended to identify the factors affecting it in higher education as a human resources producer to achieve optimal development and future.