content analysis of course plans presented by teachers in the school of health of mashhad university of medical sciences (2012-2013)

background: course plan is among the useful tools to improve the quality of education. this study is conducted to analyze the content of course plans presented by teachers in the school of health of mashhad university of medical sciences. methods:in this cross - sectional study, 98 out of 102 course plans of second semester of the academic year 2012-2013 were evaluated. the data was collected using a checklist containing 11 dimensions. data was analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics . results:the average score of evaluation was 23.2 ± 3.2. a significant correlation was observed between faculty gender, employment status and evaluation scores of their course plans (p<0.001). the greatest shortcomings were related to dimensions of educational assistance tools (64.3%), objectives (51%). the dimensions of goals in the lesson plans (92.9%), outline (90.8%), gained the highest scores. conclusions: most of the course plans contents were in an acceptable level although there is a room for improvement in the quality of the course plan content.