Internal evaluation of physiotherapy department of Semnan University of Medical Sciences

  Introduction : The internal evaluation which is done by the members of the different departments is the best way to judge about quality of education and to identify its strong and weak areas. With regard to the important role of evaluation in the quality of education, the aim of this study was to conduct an internal evaluation of the department of physiotherapy in order to optimize the educational quality of the different parts of the department.   Materials and Methods : This descriptive-cross sectional study was done to evaluate some variables such as: educational goals, optimal leading of the department, instrumental and physical equipments, clinical educational environment, and student measures about educational style and teaching quality of practical and theoretical courses of scientific members of physiotherapy department. To collect data, questionnaires and checklists was provided by the faculty members of the department of physiotherapy. These instruments were given to the faculty members (to evaluate themselves) and the students (sophomore and senior students of physiotherapy to evaluate the theoretical courses and the junior and senior students were asked to evaluate the clinical courses). After collecting each instrument, results were categorized according to the modified Gourman scoring scale.   Results : According to the modified Gourman scale, means were obtained from internal evaluation of physiotherapy as in follow: professional–theoretical lessons were in good ranking, clinical courses were in good ranking, educational and physical equipments (evaluated by scientific members and students) were in more than satisfied ranking and evaluation of head of group and scientific members were in good ranking.   Conclusion : Generally, results showed physiotherapy group was in good category. Obviously, to reach an ideal level, we should make some changes, for example, encouraging and strengthening weak areas and maintaining strong areas.