Background:The academic status of students makes up an essential component of educational assessments. Objectives: The present study was conducted to evaluate the effect of basic science courses on the academic status of medical students in Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (KUMS), Kermanshah, Iran. Methods: The demographic information of the medical students collected in the present cross-sectional study over a three-year period included age, gender, quota for the Iranian university entrance examination (UEE), interval between receiving high school diploma and admission to university, type of high school diploma, high school GPA and score of specialized and general courses in the UEE. Moreover, the academic data included scores of courses, GPA of the basic science courses and score of the comprehensive basic sciences exam were collected using a questionnaire, and analyzed in SPSS V. 16 using descriptive statistics, one-way ANOVA, Tukey's test and the chi-square test.
Results:The majority of the students (94.7%) had a high school diploma in experimental sciences and belonged to regions 2 (51.6%) and 3 (37%) of the UEE. Significant differences were observed between different groups of the students admitted to university in terms of age (P < 0.05), although no significant differences were identified in terms of gender, type of high school diploma, UEE quota and high school GPA. The highest scores of specialized courses in percentage in the UEE were associated with biology and chemistry. Significant correlations were also observed between the GPA of basic science courses and high school GPA in all the three groups of students admitted to university (P < 0.05).
Conclusions:The academic status and related factors were found to be nearly the same in the medical students of KUMS in three successive years of admission, and they were affected by constant factors, including high school GPA and GPA of basic science courses.
BackgroundThe population of the elderly taken care of at the nursing homes are increasing by the growth of the elderly’s population. Insufficient knowledge of the caretakers can affect the quality of their care from the elderly and result in poor performance. We aimed to evaluate the effect of education on knowledge, attitude, and performance of caretakers working at nursing homes.MethodsIn this quasi-experimental study, a total of 54 caretakers participated in Four-session classes and their knowledge, attitude, and performance towards the elderly were evaluated before, immediately after, and 1 month after the education by a researcher-designed questionnaire using SPSS software version 21.ResultsThe mean scores of the participants’ in attitude had no significant change knowledge scores at the three intervals, respectively (P=0.001) with a significant difference after the intervention compared with before (P<0.05). The performance scores at the three intervals, respectively (P<0.001) with a significant difference after the intervention compared with before (P<0.05). ConclusionThe significant improvement of knowledge and work performance of the elderly caretakers working at nursing homes shows the necessity of educating these individuals for better care from the elderly.
This study aimed to investigate the relationship between creativity and thinking styles of high school male students in Zanjan in the academic year 2012-2013. The Abedi's Creativity test and Sternberg's thinking styles questionnaires were used for collecting the required data and answering the research questions. The statistical analysis was performed with SPSS software. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between students' thinking styles and creativity. According to their correlation with creativity, the thirteen thinking styles were measured by Sternberg's thinking styles questionnaire are: legislative, democratic, oligarchic, Monarchy, inside, general, anarchy. The partial thinking style had a negative correlation with creativity. Generally, these thinking styles were significant predictor for creativity of students in the study population. However, there was no significant relationship between the executive, judicial, hierarchical, conservative, and exterior thinking styles and creativity of the students.
The present study attempted to compare the effect of teaching concept mapping in reading on extrovert and introvert English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners' Self-Regulation (SR). The participants were 60 female EFL learners at the intermediate level of English language proficiency, between 18 and 20 (Mage = 19). The Preliminary English Test was employed in order to select homogeneous participants in terms of English language proficiency level, followed by administering Eysenck's Personality Inventory (1985). The language-wise homogeneous introvert (n = 30) and extrovert (n = 30) participants were assigned randomly into two experimental groups of 30. To identify the pre-treatment and post-treatment levels of participants' SR, the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (1991) was administered twice. The two groups were instructed using the same material and implementing Harris and Graham’s (1996) concept mapping instruction model. The analysis of the scores using an Independent-Samples t-Test revealed that extrovert participants exhibited a significantly higher SR level as a result of being exposed to concept mapping. The study concludes with a discussion on the obtained results and the probable reasons leading to them, followed by presenting some implications for EFL teachers, learners, and syllabus designers.
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