Comparing Educational, Research and Administrative Activities of Faculty Members Completing their PhD Degree either using Scholarship Funds or not

Introduction: Every year some faculty members continue their education to get their PhD in the form of scholarship, educational assignment, or other ways. Granting scholarship for studying inside or outside the country imposes many problems and high costs to the Ministry of Health and medical universities in Iran. This study aimed to compare the educational, research and administrative performance of faculty members taking advantage of scholarship funds or using other sources to continue their studies for PhD degree. Methods: This descriptive study was done on faculty members of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences who completed their PhD degree during the years 1986-2006. Data gathering tool was a researcher-made questionnaire including three parts asking about faculty members educational, administrative and research performances. The obtained results were analyzed by SPSS software using descriptive statistics, t-test, and ANOVA. Results: In total 82 faculties were studied among which 39 had used external scholarship, 16 had internal scholarship, 12 were on educational assignment, and 13 had continued their studies without using any mentioned procedures. There was a significant difference (p=.01) between the 4 groups in evaluation scores (educational performance). But, no significant difference was observed in their administrative performance. Regarding their research activities, a significant difference was observed in some research areas such as conducting research (p=.002), articles published in Iranian journals (p=.004), and in journals outside the country (p=.04). Conclusion: According to the results, faculty members using external or internal scholarship had a lower performance in their research activities compared to the other groups. Also, the administrative activities of faculty members with external scholarship were less than the others. Therefore, it is recommended that through more detailed and extensive studies, re-examine the policies and regulations regarding scholarship or educational assignments.