Developing Educational Status Assessment Tools for Nursing Schools in Iran and their Ranking in 2004

Introduction: Recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of schools through comparison of their educational services status, is one of the effective ways in determining their present situations. In other words, educational ranking of institutions and introducing the best models, is the requisite for short-term and long-term plannings regarding qualitative and quantitative improvement of schools. The aim of this study was to develop a tool for studying the qualitative and quantitative status of educational services in nursing schools and ranking them through this tool. Methods: In a survey study, a set of criteria for investigating educational services was developed based on a tree diagram model. Then, the weignt of these criteria was determined through consensus making method. A representative from each school was introduced to complete the questionnaire. Through visiting the schools, the data was completed and revised. Subsequently, the score of every individual school was estimated for each criterion. A computer software was exploited to perform the final analysis. Results: In order to investigate the educational services provided in nursing education, a set of more than 60 criteria and indicators in three subsets of input, process, and output were designed and their weights were also determined. The first rank belonged to nursing discipline in School of Nursing and Midwifery of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences with the score of 65.15 out of 100 School of Nursing and Midwifery of Tehran University of Medical Sciences with the score of 62.59 out of 100 owned the secon rank and the third rank belonged to School of Nursing and Midwifery of Iran University of Medical Sciences with the score of 59.76 out of 100. Conclusion: Having this project carried out, the strengths and weaknesses of educational services provided in nursing field were defined, and presented to administrators and educational managers as a practical model for qualitative and quantitative improvements.