Evaluating the Competencies of Faculty Members of Medical Sciences Universities in the International Interactions: A Strategy toward Internationalization

Introduction: Having interaction at the international level requires having the necessary competencies in this field. For this reason, a faculty member must have the necessary competencies in the international arena. Thus, the purpose of the study was to evaluate the competencies of faculty members of selected medical sciences universities in international interactions.  Method: This study was conducted with the quantitative approach by cross-sectional survey method.  ​In the study, 257 faculty members of the medical sciences universities of Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad, Tabriz, and Esfahan in five clusters (North, South, East, West, and Center) by cluster sampling method and during four months in 2020 were selected. The tool used for data collection was a researcher-made questionnaire that was sent electronically to the faculty members byGoogle Form. The validity  and reliability of the questionnaire were confirmed by two experts in the field of competency and Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.84 respectively. The data by statistical methods including, measures of skewness and kurtosis to check the normality, also a one-sample t-test was used by SPSS were analyzed. Result: Of the 257 faculty members who participated in the study, 52.1% were male and 47.9% were female. Findings showed that the standard deviation ± mean of the component of professional competency was 0.5910±3.38,the communication competency 0.6709±3.08, the intercultural competency 0.5854±3.84, and the intellectual competency 0.5058 ± 3.61, ​and considering the value of t at the level (p = 0.01), these findings were significant. Conclusion: Given the faculty members of selected medical universities have the necessary competencies in the field of international interaction, it seems to pay attention to the mechanisms such as concluding memorandums of cooperation with prominent foreign universities, as well as, considering more points for the faculty members 'international activities in the promotion regulations can help to increase faculty members' international interactions.