Investigating the faculty evaluation system in Iranian Medical Universities

To achieve a valid evaluation of faculty members, it is necessary to develop an inclusive and dynamic system of evaluation addressing all the activities and responsibilities of faculty members. Among these responsibilities, educational activities comprise an important part which needs to be investigated. This study aimed to investigate the current system of evaluating the faculty members' educational duties.

In this descriptive cross-sectional study, a checklist for investigating the current evaluation system and was developed confirmed by a focus group. The data for checklist were collected through a researcher-made questionnaire and interview with eight experts of faculty evaluation that worked in different Iranian Medical Universities. For completion of information, the available documents and records were studied. Finally, the current evaluation system of different universities was depicted.

The developed checklist had six themes and 123 subthemes. The extracted themes included: Tools, evaluators, processes, appropriateness of faculty field of work with evaluation, feedback status, and university status regarding decisions made based on faculty evaluation results. As for comprehensiveness, all evaluation items except for evaluation and assessment skills and religiosity from personality traits subtheme were fully investigated. The evaluation tools were not enough for different types of education such as clinical education. In six universities, the feedbacks provided were only for making inter/intra department comparison, and no scientific suggestions were included. The results of evaluations were used only for the faculties' promotions.

Suitability between evaluation and performance components is a necessity in every evaluation system. The study showed this does not exist in Iranian Universities. For instance, there was no appropriate tool for the evaluation of clinical education. Also, the results of the faculty evaluation were not used for the improvement of their educational performance.