Educational needs of faculty members of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences in 2011

Identifying educational needs is an essential step in planning faculty development programs. It plays an important role in promoting the quality of education. The aim of this study was to determine and prioritize the educational needs of clinical and non clinical faculty members of Faculty of Medicne of Shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Sciences.

A questionnaire was developed for this cross-sectional study using the indices identified by reviewing the literature. The questionnaire was sent to all faculty members of Medical Faculty (n=260). The items were scored from 1 to 20 according to the importance of the educational needs. Data was analyzed by SPSS software.

Different areas of educational needs of the clinical faculty members were respectively prioritized as: familiarity with National Medical Universities Ranking Schemeresearch، personal development، administrative and executive activities، education، specialized activities outside the university and health services and health promotion. In the non clinical faculty members: research، familiarity with National Medical Universities Ranking Schemeeducation، personal development، specialized activities outside the university، administrative and executive activities. The first priority of education in the clinical faculty members was design، implementation and analysis of oral exams. In research domain priorities were data analysis skills and the first priority of education in the non clinical faculty members was how to foster critical thinking and reasoning in research and critical appraisal skills.

Faculty members need all of the seven studiedmajor areas. It is recommended further research to determine the weight of these seven areas using a standard method.