Exploring the Faculty Members’ Expectations from Educational Development Centers in Medical Universities: A Qualitative Research

Introduction: The great developments in medical sciences during the past three decades have made transformation and change in medical education more necessary than ever, and led to the establishment of educational development centers (EDCs). EDCs are responsible for decision-making and policy implementation to promote quality of education in universities. This research, explores faculty expectations from EDCs, as the main clients who could be the main partners, too. Methods: This is a qualitative study inspired by goal-free evaluation model. Participants were selected using purposeful sampling from faculty members in public medical universities who were either the educational managers or had worked for more than 5 years. We used semi-structured individual interviews with open questions to collect data. The interviews were continued until data saturation. The validity and reliability of this research rooted in four axes, Credibility, Transferability, Dependability and Confirmability. Thematic analysis method was used to analyze the content. Results: Fifteen people participated in interviews. The data were categorized into 6 main themes, 16 classes (subthemes) and 9 subclasses. The main themes are as follows: EDCs’ educational role, the centers’ role in the evaluation process, return to EDCs’ existence philosophy, centers and faculty members, the centers’ role in knowledge production,and the supportive role of the centers in the development of Educational Development Offices (EDOs in school level). Conclusion: Extensiveand diverse expectations of the faculty members can suggest the significance and sensitivity of the centers’ roles in the quality promotion within medical universities. It seems that detection of the faculty members’ expectations and addressing them may help motivate them for better partnership. It is hoped that the results of this research will be utilized in the future planning by EDCs.