ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Original Research

Authors

Taheri Mirghaed   M. (1 )
Raadabadi   M. (2 )
Hosseini   S.H. (1 )
Bahadori   M.K. (* )






(* ) Health Management Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
(1 ) Management Department, Health School, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
(2 ) Research Center for Health Services Management, Institute for Futures Studies in Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Health Management Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Mollasadra St., Tehran, Iran
Phone: +982182482417
Fax: +98218805702
bahadori_57@yahoo.com

Article History

Received:  June  18, 2013
Accepted:  November 11, 2013
ePublished:  March 17, 2014

BRIEF TEXT


Attention to the education and student training in the universities is very important [1, 2]. Academic failure wastes human potentials and economic resources [3, 4]. The lack of academic success, might lead to some negative social behaviors and a great damage to the country [5, 6, 7, 9]. It is necessary to identify the effective factors on educational failure to identify educational failure and prevent its effects [8, 17, 18]. Educational failure might be related to students’ psychological status and the university teacher’s characteristics, and there are studies about educational failure, which concern students’ psychic characters [19-25]. There are also other factors such as individual and family factors, companions and communications, the organization of the faculty, social and economic factors and lecturers’ knowledge, which are effective on students’ educational failure [26-28].

Former studies about academic failure in Iran were about non-medical disciplines [8]. There are some studies which report educational failure among medical students of some Iran Universities [10, 11, 12, 13]. There are also studies which report educational failure factors, from other countries [14, 15, 16].

The aim of the study was to evaluate effective factors on educational failure from paramedical students’ viewpoints.

The method is descriptive-analytical.

Undergraduate, graduate and PhD students of Paramedical Faculty of Tehran University of Medical Sciences who passed at least one semester and were registered as students were studied, during 2012.

The study was done on 1150 undergraduate, graduate and PhD students. Sample size was estimated 150 persons, using Cochran formula. Sampling was done, using simple random method.

A researcher-made questionnaire was used. The first part of the questionnaire was consisted of 5 demographic questions and the second part was consisted of 6 sub-divisions of ‘family factors’ (7 questions), ‘factors related to level and way of learning’ (8 questions), ‘factors related to the lecturers’ (11 questions), ‘economic and social factors’ (7 question), ‘factors related to educational environment’ (10 questions) and ‘factors related to educational content’ (3 questions).Using five-item Likrts’ scale, the scores were determined as ‘very high’ (1 score) to ‘very low’ (5 scores). Validity of the questionnaire was confirmed, based on the three university teachers’ opinion. Reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed in a sample of 15 persons with test/re-test. The 3 and lower means were evaluated as optimal score, and higher means were evaluated as educational failure. Data were analyzed by SPSS 18 software, using Independent Two-sample T (to consider the correlation between the effective factors on educational failure and underlying variables of sex, marital status and employment status) and ANOVA (to consider the correlation between the effective factors on educational failure and 2 underlying variables of education status and residency) tests.

130 questionnaires were completed and returned. The mean score for all factors was obtained 3.67±0.38. The highest mean was related to the ‘factors related to educational content’, and the lowest was related to ‘economic and social factors’. There was a significant correlation between age and domains of socio-economic factors and factors related to educational content, and in the two domains, the average of the students aged between 21 and 25 was more than 16 to 20 and 26 to 30 aged students. There was a significant correlation between students’ sex and socio-economic factors, factors related to environment, factors related to educational content and factors related to lecturer, and in the domains the average of male scores was greater than the female scores. The highest effective factor on educational failure in male students was belonged to the factors related to educational content, and the lowest factor was related to the factors related to family. The highest effective factor was belonged to the factors related to educational content, and the lowest factor was belonged to economic-social factors in girl students. There was a significant correlation between students’ employment status and the domain related to educational content. The highest factor was belonged to the factors related to family domain, and the lowest factor was belonged to the socio-economic factors domain in unemployed persons. The highest factor in employed persons belonged to the educational content domain, and the lowest factor was belonged to the students’ level and way of learning domain.

Three other studies, done by Jebraeily et al. [30], Vanhanen et al. [31] and Bakouei et al. [32], showed that the educational factors is effective on education status, which is consistent with the results of the present study.

It is suggested that educational methods to be reviewed and to be corrected and lessons’ contents to be changed and new titles to be designed in order to prevent more educational failure among the students.

Non-declared

The most important effective factor on educational failure of the paramedical students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences is factors related to educational content’, according to their viewpoints ‘.

Researchers feel grateful towards the chief of the Paramedical Faculty and all the students who participated in conducting this study.

There is no conflict according to the researchers’ claim.

Non-declared

This study has been declared by Tehran University of Medical Sciences and Health Services and Medical Care, contract No: 132/353.

TABLES and CHARTS

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