Assessment of research performance and educational research needs of Iran's Dental schools-2004

Compared to the information about educational responsibilities, there is not much information about the research skills and activities of the academics in dental schools. The aim of this study was to evaluate the research performance of the academic staff of the dental schools and their educational needs to promote their research skills. This cross-sectional study was done by mailing a questionnaire to all of the members of Iran dental faculties. The questionnaires contained personal information like age, sex, place of employment, educational records, and additional questions like the workshops previously attended, and interests to attend certain workshops. To evaluate the research performance of the academic staff, the number of accomplished researches, the articles published in known national and international journals, their skills in using internet, and the number of attended workshops about research methodology were included in the questionnaire. The completed questionnaires were gathered and evaluated by descriptive statistics. From the questionnaires gathered, 436 were eligible to be included in the study, which formed 58% of the academic staff of dental schools. The results showed that 7.4% of the staff had more than 10 researches conducted, 15% had 5-10, 49.9% had less than 5, and 27.7 had no researches done. Considering the articles published in known national journals, 28.2% had no papers, 51.8% had 1-5 papers, and 20% had more than 5 papers. Regarding the number of articles published in known international journals, 77.5% had no papers, and 20.2% had 1-3, and 2.3% and more than 3 papers. The "preliminary research methods" workshop had the highest percent of participation (71.6%), and "Stata acquaintance" workshop had the least (0.7%). The participants were mainly interested to participate in three workshops, "English scientific writing" (26.3%), "principles of scientific writing" (17.5%), and preparing research proposals" (16.2%), respectively. We concluded that the research skills and performance of the academic staff, though improved in the recent years, is still unsatisfying. In order to promote it, it is recommended to organize workshops about "research methodology", "scientific writing" and "preparing of proposals"