Faculty Members’ Experiences of Empowerment Programs in Tabriz University of Medical Sciences - A Qualitative Study

Implementing faculty empowerment programs is an important strategy to make a change in the higher education system. This study aimed to identify and explain the faculty members’ experiences of educational empowerment programs held at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences.

This was a qualitative study performed with the conventional content analysis method and by using the Graneheim and Lundman approach for data analysis. Data were collected using in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The statistical population included the faculty of clinical and basic sciences. Data were collected from 29 interviews with 26 faculty members attending academic skills courses, who were willing to share their experiences in this regard.

The interviews were classified in more than 276 open codes, 55 subclasses, four classes, and two main classes. According to the results, the main classes had themes of “individual factors” and “organizational factors”. In addition, the theme of individual factors was divided into two categories of motivational and inhibitory factors while the theme of organizational factors was classified into two categories of structural and process factors.

By correcting the inhibitory factors (individual, environmental, process and organizational) and eliminating barriers through involving faculty members in the courses and using their opinions, academic skills course planners and managers could improve these programs.