Explaining the factors in the formation and improvement of professional interactions in faculty members

Faculty members, as the most important elements in universities, play an important role in realizing the goals and missions of universities and higher education institutions. Establishing interaction and professional communication among faculty members is one of the important topics. The purpose of this study was to explain the factors influencing the professional interactions of faculty members.

The present study was a qualitative research. The semi‑structured interview was used for data collection. The participants in the study were 12 faculty members and 5 students who were selected by purposive sampling. The interviews continued until data saturation was reached. The text of the interviews was analyzed by the thematic analysis using the method of Braun and Clark (2006).

Based on the analysis of the data, 6 main themes and 25 sub-themes were obtained. The main themes included “individual factors”, “human relations”, “faculty professionalism”, “the importance of side studies”, “contextual factors”, and “organizational factors”.

The results of this study indicated the affective factors on the professional interactions of faculty members from the perspective of faculty members and students. It is suggested that universities of medical sciences use the results of this study to create and improve the professional interactions of their faculty members.