ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Continuous evaluation of students’ educational status is one of the most important essentials in improving the quality of educational system in universities. This study was performed in order to assessment of academic achievement of dental students and individual effective factors on it in Babol University of Medical Science at clinical level.

METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed on 127 students admitted during the years 2008-2011 in Babol dental school (except health-servers of mouth and teeth and complementary level students). Data including: )age, gender, term time, average grade of diploma, additional occupation, housing situation, year of getting diploma, year of university entrance, marital status, occupation, parental education and residence situation) was collected by the questionnaire. Total GPA, failed course and number of probation semesters were gathered from the archive of dental school and by SPSS 17 and Repeated Measures ANOVA, ANOVA, T test, Chi-square was analyzed and P<0.05 was considered as significant.

FINDINGS: There was a meaningful relationship between history of failing in the university and the percentage of specialized courses in Entrance exam, pre-university average (P=0.03) and the age of students (0.01). Pre-university average and gender influenced on educational status. The students with higher pre-university average had better educational status and female students had better educational score than males during this period.(p=0.006 and 0.005 respectively).

CONCLUSION: According to the results of this study and the obvious role of educational status during high- school and pre-university average on the educational progress of students and considering the students of medical group have a responsibility in society’s health; it is better the future planning to be in direction of the essential changes in the admission criteria for college students.