The Analysis of Students' Attitudes toward Curriculum at School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Introduction: Curricula are the core of education in academic centers. One of the most important topics of curricula is the patterns that guide the teaching-learning process, and based on that instructors adopt effective patterns and strategies in their classrooms. Given the importance of this issue, this study aimed to investigate and identify the curriculum patterns of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences (SUMS) at the School of Nursing and Midwifery from the students' perspective.

Methods: This study is practical in terms of the purpose and adopts a descriptive survey method. The population of this study included all students of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at SUMS. The total number of students was 545 people; using proportional quota sampling 217 samples were selected. The instrument used in this study was a researcher-made questionnaire about curriculum patterns. Using content validity, the validation of the questionnaires was calculated. The reliability of the questionnaires was calculated using Cronbach alpha coefficient. Data were analyzed using one-sample t-test, independent t-test, and one-way ANOVA.

Results: The results indicated that technical curriculum patterns were the dominant patterns applied by lecturers of School of Nursing and Midwifery at SUMS (P<0.001). Two variables, students' discipline and level of education, were related in their views towards lecturers' curriculum patterns, but gender did not show any relationship with the students' perspective towards their professors' curriculum patterns.

Conclusion: In general, this study showed that the dominant curriculum pattern of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at SUMS was technical curriculum patterns. Based on results, it can be said that in general, because of the medical education system's emphasis on fostering higher levels of thinking, life-long learning skills, essential abilities and practical and empirical learning which comply with non-technical curriculum patterns, it is necessary to revise curriculum patterns of lecturers in this school.