A survey on student's attitude toward teacher's educational characteristics in Birjand University of Medical Sciences in 2014

In universities of medical sciences, teachers are known as key elements in education and research. Therefore, evaluating performance is the best way to quality control academic members in a medical educational system. The current study aimed to investigate student's attitudes towards current teaching characteristics of teachers in Birjand University of Medical Sciences. Using a standard electronic questionnaire, the attitude of the students was assessed toward their teachers’ characteristics and teaching. Then, the final semester exams and the total average scores of the students was automatically called from the university database and loaded in learning management system’s database. The data was analyzed using T-test and analysis of covariance. From seven different faculties, a total of 827 participants enrolled into this study. The average score of the students’ attitude towards teaching of their teachers was 4.16 out of 5, showing a high satisfaction of the students regarding instructional elements of their teachers’ characteristics. The faculty of emergency medicine had the highest mid and highest average of satisfaction based on the students’ attitude among other faculties. Also, there was a significant difference between male and females regarding their attitudes’ scores (P<0.05). Teachers’ evaluation provides a background for competition, selecting superior teachers from student perspective and also helping students for choosing their teachers in next year's courses. Teacher evaluation should not be only restricted to students attitudes’ scores. It is expected to provide various protocols in order to bring teachers’ evaluation scores into reality.