Evaluating a Group of Medical School Students’ Opinions in Terms of Quality

Year 2017, Issue: 1, 17 - 24, 01.06.2017

Fatma Bolaç Oya Ögenler

Abstract

The special importance medical education has among sectors is universal, and its most important expectation is to fulfill a certain quality of standards that contribute to its basic universal perfectionism. The aim of our study is to evaluate medical students’ expectations from medical education and how these expectations are realized within the academic process in terms of quality and standards. The universe of the study consists of 230 students. The students were asked two open-ended questions in order to understand what they had expected after successfully passing the student selection and placement system exam (ÖSYS) and whether their expectations had been fulfilled or not. In summarizing the data frequency, averages, standard deviation, and mean were used; the t-test was used to compare student data, with p < .05 assumed as statistically significant. In our study, 116 (41.4% female, 58.6% male) students were accessed between the ages of 20-28 (average age = 22.12, SD = 1.43). Their score average for the ÖSYS is 501.85 (SD = 11.85). Their native regions are the Mediterranean (54.3%) and southeastern Anatolia (28.4%). As far as quality standards, 70 students (60.3%) stated having expectations about their profession’s features. Fifty percent stated their expectations had been fulfilled, 35 (30.2%) stated their expectations had not been fulfilled, and 23 (19.8%) did not state a clear opinion. The ÖSYS average score for students who stated their expectations had been fulfilled is found to be lower than the average score of those who stated their expectations had not been fulfilled. (p = .00). In our study, we observed students to have expectations about post-graduation, the academic process, and social environment in terms of the quality of standards in medical education. As a result, increasing students’ knowledge levels on quality is thought able to develop their expectations positively and contribute to the quality of medical education.

Keywords

Education, Quality, Standard, Medical education, Medical student