Teacher's effective teaching criteria as viewed by the students of Kerman University of Medical Sciences

Abstract

Background: The most valuable element in a medical university is its faculty members and one important function of them is teaching,, but one major problem in university education is the lack of effective teaching criteria to assess this main function of faculty members. Purpose :To identify the most important feature of effective teaching from students point of view Methods: A self-administered questionnaire assessing the effective teaching criteria from the students' point of view was developed. It was filled by the students and the result was analysed with SPSS. Results: Of all participants 51% were female. The average age was 22.1±2.46 for females and 24.6 ±4.6 for males. 72% of the population were single, 27% were married and the remaining were divorced "being knowledgeable" with 86.6 percent was the first priority in "knowledge seeking" feature (P<0.01). In "Communication ability" feature, 39.7% of the students mentioned “promoting students participation in discussions" to be the most prominent character. In "Personality" feature, 28.8% of the respondent believed that" fluent explanation" was the most essential character. Students decided that "Teaching method", "communication ability", "knowledge seeking" and "personality" were the required features for effective teaching in the descending order. Conclusion: Our results showed that students considered “teaching method" as the most essential feature of a professor's effective teaching, but similar studies in other universities of medicine shoed other factors personality. Further study seems reasonable since students as one major component of education will produce better outcomes, personally and professionally, they are satisfied with their teachers. Key words: EFFECTIVE TEACHING