Satisfaction of Shahed University medical students towards clinical academic advisors performance in 2013

Background and Objective: Advice and guidance of students during their studying period are one of the most important responsibilities of university professors. Medical students are exposed to a variety of stresses which may affect their education and health. This study was designed to determine Shahed University medical students view and satisfaction about performance of academic advisors.

Materials and Methods: This cross sectional descriptive study was performed on 200 medical students, after entrance into clinical course at Shahed University. Information was gathered via a reliable and valid researcher-made questionnaire. Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS 16 software. P‹0.05 was considered significant.

Results: Shahed Medical students reported that the best way for selection of academic advisor is by themselves (58%). Meanwhile, 66.5% of students preferred to be in guidance of same gender academic advisor and 48% of students preferred to interact with their academic advisors in both face to face and non-face to face methods. Satisfaction of many students for assessing the previous and current academic status of students, introducing academic and university rules, time and place programming for consultation and accessibility to academic advisors and findings educational problems were high. But overall satisfaction from academic advisors performance was medium.

Conclusion: Results of this study showed that overall satisfaction of Shahed medical students from academic advisors were medium, therefore revision and some changes in selection of advisors guidance, programming for students’ consultation and suitable supervision of advisor guidance responsibilities are required.