external evaluation of the "an action research in changing the curriculum and teaching and learning methods"

purpose: the present article aims at an external evaluation of the action research in changing the curriculum and teaching and learning methods conducted during the years 2000-2001 in shaheed beheshti umshs. material & method: 384 students and 35 lectures participated in the study. a questionnaire was designed to measure the participants opinions regarding usefulness of the active methods proposed by the action research, and also the appropriateness and adequacy of the facilities and auxiliary educational equipments. the criteria used to evaluate the usefulness of the program were student's presence and active participation in the class, learning retention, self-confidence, motivation, satisfaction, being active, feeling responsibility, group discussion and attractiveness of the program. the participants answered the questions based on four choices: very much, much, moderate and less. the class behaviours of 20 lecturesrs were observed and recorded based on a checklist containing 9 items. findings: 8% of the students stated that the program was less successful, 57% as moderately successful, 33% as highly successful and 2% as very highly successful. only 32.3% of the students stated that the facilities were adequate. 29 out of 34 faculty members believed that active methods implemented in the university were useful. 24 out of 34 faculty members stated that educational facilities were adequately provided. there were significant differences between the opinions of the faculty members and students. conclusion: the majority of the students did not believe in the usefulness of the classes because they were not briefed about the importance of active methods in education. another reason for their dissatisfaction might be because of the load of work in active methods of the compared with lecture based methods. students were not satisfied with the educational physical environment and overloaded classes. this needs further scrutiny by the authorities since it has been reported in other similar studies. in general the action research was successful based on the faculty members opinions.