Reliability and Validity of Resident's Evaluation of the Mashhad University of Medical Sciences Faculty Members, in Different Clinical and Para-Clinical Groups

Evaluation in education is common, the most complex type of evaluation is the evaluation of professors Evaluation of 311 Mashhad University of Medical Sciences faculty members, in different clinical and para-clinical groups in the educational year 1390 was performed by 1 to 47 residents in 13 items. Reliability of residents’ evaluation was determined by Cronbach's alpha measurement. Factor analysis was used to determine the validity of the residents’ evaluation. Obtained Cronbach's alpha of more than 0.95 demonstrated good reliability of residents’ evaluation of professors. Validity evaluation of the questionnaire showed that only 68% of the total variation was explained by it, also extraction of more than one component for improvement in the interpretation of the results was not possible. None of the 13 items in the questionnaire had eigen-value of more than 1. These results showed that the assessment was without validity. Students may be more affected by the characteristics of the teacher like: reputation, religion, appearance or adornment, political and cultural information, class attendance, administrative position, manner and conduction; than the content and methods of his/her teaching. The questionnaire was completed by respondent bias; had reliability but lacked validity, students may have had evaluated other characteristics of the professors, rather than the 13 questions asked in the questionnaire.