Characteristics of a Capable University Lecturer from the Viewpoints of Health Services Management Students in Iranian Medical Universities

Understanding the characteristics and criteria that students use to select their teachers, is an indicator for evaluating teachers in order to improve the quality and effectiveness of education. Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the characteristics of a capable university lecturer from the viewpoints of health services management students in Iranian medical universities. In this descriptive, analytical, cross-sectional study, 582 bachelor's degree students of health services management participated. Data were collected using a self-developed questionnaire, the content validity and reliability of which were confirmed. The questionnaire included six main domains, namely, teaching method, personal characteristics, evaluation skills, scholarly activities, interpersonal skills, and educational regulations. Data were analyzed using Student’s independent t-test and ANOVA in SPSS software. Our findings suggest that teaching methods (4.34), interpersonal skills (4.17), and personal characteristics (4.11) were the most important domains from the student's perspectives. On the other hand, characteristic such as calling the roll (3.62), taking mid-term quizzes (3.66), and teacher's strictness (3.71) were the least important domains. There was a significant relationship between sex and the educational regulations domain (P = 0.01). However; there was no significant relationship between mean score of domains based on student's term of education (P > 0.05). In total, the correlation between all domains revealed 2 distinct categories in the form of personal characteristics and professional commitments. According to our results, favorable characteristics of academics, especially their individual characteristics and personality, are one of the determining factors in achieving educational goals and increasing the quality of education.