Investigating the faculty evaluation system in Iranian Medical Universities
نویسندگان
1 Department of Medical Education, Medical Education Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
2 Department of Medical Education, Medical Education Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran
3
doi
چکیده
Introduction: To achieve a valid evaluation of faculty members, it is necessary to develop aninclusive and dynamic system of evaluation addressing all the activities and responsibilities offaculty members. Among these responsibilities, educational activities comprise an important partwhich needs to be investigated. This study aimed to investigate the current system of evaluatingthe faculty members’ educational duties. Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study,a checklist for investigating the current evaluation system and was developed confirmed by afocus group. The data for checklist were collected through a researcher-made questionnaireand interview with eight experts of faculty evaluation that worked in different Iranian MedicalUniversities. For completion of information, the available documents and records were studied.Finally, the current evaluation system of different universities was depicted. Results: Thedeveloped checklist had six themes and 123 subthemes. The extracted themes included:Tools, evaluators, processes, appropriateness of faculty field of work with evaluation, feedbackstatus, and university status regarding decisions made based on faculty evaluation results.As for comprehensiveness, all evaluation items except for evaluation and assessment skillsand religiosity from personality traits subtheme were fully investigated. The evaluation toolswere not enough for different types of education such as clinical education. In six universities,the feedbacks provided were only for making inter/intra department comparison, and noscientific suggestions were included. The results of evaluations were used only for the faculties’promotions. Discussion: Suitability between evaluation and performance components is anecessity in every evaluation system. The study showed this does not exist in Iranian Universities.For instance, there was no appropriate tool for the evaluation of clinical education. Also, the resultsof the faculty evaluation were not used for the improvement of their educational performance.
