The purpose of this thesis is to clarify different aspects of the nursing curriculum from lecturers' and students' points of view in Iran. The evaluation employed a triangulation technique in order to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the nursing programme and to provide explanations for its successes and failures. In addition, it attempts to find whether there was any relationship between the characteristics of the respondents and their evaluation of the curriculum. The thesis begins with an introduction to the research. The general policy of The Ministry of Health in nursing education and also the main problems which the students and the teaching staff are confronted with, and the deficiencies of facilities are clarified as background to the research. After describing the main features of the nursing curriculum, some critical issues in nursing education are reviewed. At first, investigations on the nursing curriculum in general are analysed and then nursing research on a particular course of a component of the nursing curriculum is described. The conceptual framework of the research explores different concepts of curriculum and its evaluation. Methodological issues and the findings of the research are also presented in detail. In order to make inferences about the characteristics of the lecturer and student populations from the characteristics of the samples drawn from these populations, inferential statistics are applied. The most important findings of this study fall into three categories: The different components of the curriculum from viewpoints of the lecturers and students were: - Goal: ambiguous from the respondents' viewpoints; - Content: acceptable from the respondents' viewpoints: - Methodology: controversial. Lecturers were critical of the teaching methods. On the other hand, they were acceptable to the students; - Evaluation: controversial. Assessment approaches of the individuals were acceptable to the lecturers but not acceptable to the students; There was no common viewpoint among the respondents about the nursing components of the curriculum. None of the respondents' characteristics had a statistical significant relationship with their perceptions about evaluation of the nursing curriculum.

The ability to learn and work in a multidisciplinary team is crucial to the delivery of healthcare that is ‘fit for purpose’ in the twenty-first century. Consequently, interprofessional education (IPE) is a mandatory requirement for pre-registration training in health and social care. However, the evidence base for the effectiveness of such programmes remains limited. This evaluative study aims to explore the potential influence of IPE at pre-registration level, using podiatry as an exemplar. In Phase One, key informant interviews were held with IPE curriculum developers from higher education institutions (HEIs) (n=8) in the United Kingdom. Verbatim transcripts of these interviews were analysed using elements of grounded theory. In Phase Two, using the qualitative results as the anchor, a survey was constructed and administered to pre-registration health and social work students in a number of parallel IPE initiatives (Sample 1: n=1151; Sample 2: n=1060), involving 6 and 5 HEIs respectively. The findings of the key informant interviews and SPSS survey analysis were subsequently combined to inform the results of the research. The findings revealed an absence of educational theory underpinning the IPE curriculum development process. In addition there were issues concerning institutional commitment to IPE, attitudes towards IPE, and inconsistencies in the approach to curriculum delivery, all of which militated against successful implementation. The results illuminated that students learn about other health and social care professions that are represented in their IPE group. An appropriate time to introduce IPE into pre-registration programmes was found to be the latter part of the academic year for students studying first year modules. Students’ readiness for interprofessional learning was found to be enhanced if they were inducted to a coherent IPE initiative with consistent approaches to learning, teaching, assessment and evaluation across programmes. However, attitude differences between professional groups emerged where students with a strong sense of professional identity and roles were less ready to engage in interprofessional learning. This study indicates that the current method of implementing IPE in pre-registration health and social care programmes is less than ideal. The development and delivery of the IPE curriculum appears to be flawed. Explanations for the findings are explored and the implications for practice and future research are considered.