Medical Faculty Members’ Teaching Competencies and Factors Affecting It

Background: Faculty members are the main sources of universities. Determination and promotion of their competencies lead to the overall performance promotion of universities. Faculty members’ teaching competencies have the greatest role in the improvement of education, research and universities social services quality. Therefore, in order to investigate this issue more carefully, this study aimed to determine the level of teaching competency in medical faculty members and factors affecting it. Methods: This applied research is a descriptive cross-sectional study that was done by stratified probability sampling with 160 medical faculty members as subjects (32 basic science faculty members, 128 clinical science faculty members) in Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, solar year 1390.. Selected items from Alabama University teaching competency self assessment instrument was used as the questionnaire. The data were analyzed with the software SPSS 11.0. Results: The median score of teaching competency was 92.0 with the minimum score of 39.0 and maximum score of 112.0; there was no significant difference between basic and clinical faculty members’ competencies score (p=0/05).The most powerful competency was the classroom management, and students performance evaluation had the lowest score. There was a significant difference between teaching competency scores depending on academic degree (p=0/009), adult education competencies (p=0/02), and marriage (p=0/03). Conclusions: Because of the key role of faculty members in educational system, with the revision of educational plans and policies; we can promote the teaching competencies of teachers.