Survey of student opinion of the medical curriculum at Trinity College, Dublin, Republic of Ireland

Abstract

This description of a survey is not intended to give a blow-by-blow account of what was found or the significance of the result, since this would only be of any relevance to the medical school in which the survey was conducted. Rather it is intended to give a description of what was done and why it was done, for medical students in other schools who wish to conduct a similar inquiry. The initial indication that a survey was required was the establishment in the medical school of a curriculum review group. It was felt that rather than airing the group's own views, or impressions of what other students' views were, it would be advisable to find out exactly how students felt. To this end the survey was conducted.

Two years' experience of assessment of anatomy teachers and courses by preclinical and clinical students

“…T h e reliability of such ratings has been established (Irby and Rakestraw, 1981), and student assessment of teachers correlates well with staff self-assessment (Fallon et al, 1987). Our questionnaire, sampling, and analysis were kept deliberately simple, in contrast to those of other studies (Bolger and Staines, 1985;Fallon et al, 1987), and far from detracting from the usefulness of the study, we regard this simplicity as one of its chief strengths: it is easy to process, to analyze, and to understand.…”