Investigating the efficiency of nursing education program from the perspective of graduate students of nursing and midwifery

BACKGROUND: Continuous evaluation is required in order to ensure the university system’s efficiency. One of the important aspects of evaluating the educational system’s effectiveness is judging the system’s ability in meeting environmental needs. The present research’s goal has been to investigate nursing education’s efficiency through investigating the graduate’s condition and their views on education and studying in Isfahan University’s School of Nursing and Midwifery in 2008. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a descriptive research which has investigated the nursing graduate’s view on the nursing education efficiency. The sample of the present research contains one hundred graduates between the years 2001 and 2005 which have been chosen randomly to complete the questionnaire. The questionnaire is divided into five sections including; growth, demographic information, and satisfaction with professional development and the acquired scientific experiences during the education. The criteria of achieving educational goals, and acquiring individual and social development were used to determine the content of the questionnaire. Through further examination the validity of the questionnaire was calculated to be 0.85. The final analysis was done using the SPSS statistics software. FINDINGS: The majority of the participants were female and with an age range of 24 to 30. Among these, 55% were unemployed and 67% of them had no education higher than a bachelor degree. The mean scores of each of the efficiency fields were as following (the total score was 4): Professional growth 2.13 ± 0.36, Satisfaction with the obtained scientific achievement during studies 2.80 ± 0.48, achievement of the educational objectives1.95 ± 0.51 and individual and social improvement 2.70 ± 0.36, neither of which are desirable. There was no significant difference between the demographic information and education efficiency index. CONCLUSIONS: Considering the results of the present research, the nursing education system’s efficiency level in Isfahan University is medium. Acquiring the educational goals is not satisfactory for the students. According to the results of this research, some changes have been suggested to change the lesson plans.