Psychometric properties of a persian version of the specialty indecision scale: a Preliminary study

Diagnosis and management of specialty choice indecision is an important part of career guidance and support for medical students. Determining causes of indecision and resolving them helps students to make an optimum decision. The aim of this study was to determine the psychometric properties of a Persian version of the specialty indecision scale as an on-line questionnaire for medical student and graduates of Isfahan University of medical sciences, and also to determine the attitude of the participants towards this questionnaire. In this cross-sectional study, using Richard's specialty indecision questionnaire, the Iranian version of the questionnaire for clinical specialty indecision was developed. Face validity and cultural validity were confirmed by educational experts, and translation, back translation method, respectively. Then, the participants completed the online version of the questionnaire. Afterward, the questionnaire's items were factor analyzed. At the end, Subjects were asked about the questionnaire [clarity of the questionnaire, attractiveness of the website, user friendliness of the questionnaire, number of personal questions]. Fifty eight subjects participated in this study. The reliability of the questionnaire was acceptable [0.84]. Two questions were omitted and five were revised. Items were grouped in 4 factors [general indecisiveness, postponing, barriers, and lack of determination] one of which [barriers] was similar to the American version. The subjects were also satisfied with online questionnaire and 100% of them thought completion of the tool was useful. This study showed that conducting a web based specialty indecision questionnaire is possible. It had differences with the American version both in number of factors and the items placement. These differences are justifiable in terms of the differences in cultural backgrounds and residency admission processes in the two countries. Also, lack of attention to translating the questions and inadequacy of sample size could be other reasons for these differences. With regard to the fact that there are no career counselors in Iranian universities, operating a web based career guidance system, along with introducing a counselor, may help medical students in specialty choice decision making

Determining and prioritizing admission criteria for talented students office in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences using analytical Hierarchy Process Model

Students' scores on university entrance exam [Conquer] or their average scores are not appropriate criteria to recognize them as talented students. There have been limited studies concerning the comparison analysis of factors for selecting medical students as talented. This study was done to determine and prioritize the selection criteria for admitting students to the talented students' office. A group of 5 physicians having experience in medical education was established. Renzulli model was selected as the best descriptive model, then using brain-storming, the features of a talented student were identified. Based on Analytical Hierarchy Process [AHP], the questionnaires were designed and distributed among 21 experts. Using hierarchical analysis formula and by Excel software, the weight of each criterion was calculated. To define the weights of the sub-criteria, the detailed features of each criterion were determined and then, the total score of each sub-criterion was calculated by multiplying the score achieved in the first hierarchical analysis by the score attained in the second one. Creativity had the maximum score [38%], being responsible and prominent, were in second place acquiring 31% of the total weight. The highest grades belonged to registration of invention [127], cooperation in writing books and articles [104], and having high rank in Olympiads [92], respectively. The educational status which previously was the only admission criterion was in the fourth position, after having high rank in Olympiads. The areas of creativity, responsibility and being prominent were the main criteria for talented students' admission and there was not any significant difference between their scores. The educational status had a less important role in the prioritization system of this study. It seems that a student is required to have the three main criteria to be recognized as talented