Evaluating the academic advisors' communication skills according to the students living in dormitory.

BACKGROUND: As revealed by previous research studies, stress, lack of problem-solving ability, and weakness may influence the academic performance of students who study medicine or relevant fields. It is necessary to provide students with consultation and academic advising to ensure their support and welfare. OBJECTIVES: The present study was carried out to evaluate the academic advisors' communication abilities and skills based on the views of the students living in the dormitory of North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences, Bojnurd, Iran. METHODS: The present analytical cross-sectional study was carried out on 155 dormitory-living students who were majoring in medicine, nursing and midwifery, and health. The required data were collected using a 17-item research-made questionnaire which evaluated the academic advisors' communication skills in "oral and written," "accepting and giving feedback," "understanding others," "being a good listener," and "effectiveness" fields. Descriptive statistics and Pearson's correlation coefficient test were utilized to analyze the collected data. RESULTS: In the students' opinion, as revealed by the results of the present study, the academic advisors gained the lowest scores in "oral and written" (8.33 ± 1.58) field and the highest scores in "accepting and giving feedback" (20.78 ± 9.36) and "understanding others" (22.73 ± 9.8) fields. CONCLUSION: The students believed that the academic advisors had the lowest ability in "oral and written" field; therefore, paid more attention should be paid to their communication skills, and their "oral and written" skills should be evaluated.

Teaching ethics using games: Impact on Iranian nursing students' moral sensitivity.

This study seeks to develop a method of teaching ethics to nursing students using games. We used the one-group pretest-posttest design with 30 undergraduate nursing students as participants. Professional ethics education was provided for 17 weeks in 90-minute sessions. The Lutzen ethical sensitivity questionnaire and a checklist of the satisfaction levels of games used measured the effects of training. Repeated-measures ANOVA and the Greenhouse-Geisser correction were used to measure ethics game satisfaction. After training, total moral sensitivity questionnaire scores increased significantly (p = 0.02). The score on awareness of the relationship with the patient and the application of ethics concepts in ethical decisions from the subdomain of moral sensitivity increased significantly. Card sorting and drawing or art production earned the highest scores of satisfaction. The results show that playing games is a useful approach to developing moral sensitivity among nursing students to make them more sensitive toward ethics issues in their professional environment.