Quantitative development scenario planning of health professional education in Iran: A mixed-method study

Abstract

Background: The world surrounding human beings perpetually undergoes transformations and the universities are not an exception in this regard. The condition for survival amid this is to identify and control these transformations and the science that can assist human beings in this respect is "Futures Study" whose goal is to eliminate the ambiguity of the future, to establish the opportunities for certain future and, increase human control over the future. This issue is much more tangible than ever in medical universities dealing with the public health of the society and it is required to highly focus on their quantitative development. Methods: The present study is a mixed-method study carried out in the medical universities of Iran in 2018-2019. First, in the qualitative approach, the components and indicators of the health professional education’s quantitative development have been identified by the classical Delphi method according to targeted sampling from ten experts with content analysis that was identified and coded. In the quantitative approach, having analyzed the indicators using Scenario Wizard software, several scenarios have been designed for the quantitative development of education. Results: The study findings suggest that at least 6 components and 32 indicators can be introduced in the quantitative development of medical science education, on which some robust scenarios can be considered for futures including the optimistic, intermediary, and pessimistic ones. Conclusion: This study directs the researchers toward the quantitative development components and the indicators of medical science education in Iran and how they can be exploited to realize promising futures.