Effective elements on professional development of faculty members and ways to improve it

The current study was carried out with the purpose of reviewing effective factors on professional development of faculty members and proposing some strategies for its improvement. A causal-comparative descriptive research method was used، and a researcher-made questionnaire was utilized for data collection. The statistical population of the study included 17787 full time faculty members of the universities affiliated with the Ministry of Science، Research and Technology، of which 531 individuals were selected based on multistage stratified random sampling. Out of 531 respondents، 53، 57 and 421 persons were placed in three groups of successful، unsuccessful and in transition faculties، respectively. Variance analysis، F test and Scheffe test were employed to analyze data. Results showed that there was a significant difference between successful and unsuccessful faculty members in terms of relationships، and group and scientific interactions factors، organizational socialization، methods of decision making in the related scientific group and structural factors. Unsuccessful groups put more emphasis on teaching compared to successful and in transitions groups. In addition، successful and unsuccessful groups had significant differences with each other based on organizational socialization variable and specially sub-factor of preparation and primary coordination process. Comparison between the successful and unsuccessful groups، based on their degree of interaction and scientific relationships، showed that the successful group had significantly more interactions and scientific relationships compared to the unsuccessful group.