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Ziaee M, Miri M, Haji-abadi M, Azarkar G, Eshbak P. Academic staff and students' impressions on academic evaluation of students in Birjand University of Medical Sciences and Health Services. Journals of Birjand University of Medical Sciences 2006; 13 (4) :9-15
URL: http://journal.bums.ac.ir/article-1-118-en.html

Background and Aim: Evaluating of academic members on students assessment is a kind of educational evaluation, which includes determining their rate of success in their own educational goals. The present study was aimed to investigate the academic staff and students' impressions on academic evaluation of students in Birjand University of Medical Sciences and Health Services.
Materials and Methods: In a periodic descriptive study the academic members (60 individuals) and students (280 individuals) of Birjand University of Medical Sciences contributed. Their views were studied through two discrete questionnaires whose content validity, after some specialists’ poll and introductory study, was approved. Besides, the reliability of the questionnaires was assessed using internal homogeneity and calculating Koronbach α coefficient. Koronbach α coefficient was found to be 80%. The data were analyzed through SPSS software presenting frequency and then chi-squarer test (α = 0.05) was used to compare the frequencies.
Results: Of the 60 academic members (30 majoring in basic sciences and 30 in clinical sciences), 95% were aware of being evaluated by students and 81.7% thought that the university Educational Development Center (EDC) was responsible for evaluation. Also 91.7% of the academic staff had received the feedback of their own evaluation, 45% of them absolutely approved of the effectiveness of announcing evaluation grade in improving teaching, 40% believed that filling out the forms by students lacks a sense of responsibility and patience, and 30% thought the job was not done honestly. As for the students, from a total oشf 280, 40% believed that the evaluation forms- to a great extent- could not evaluate teaching quality of an academic member 78.2% of them filled out the forms patiently enough and 82.8% thought that the results of evaluation are credited very little.
Conclusion: Evaluating teaching method of academic members is a process aiming at improving their teaching and promoting it and giving evaluation feedback to them can reveal their strengths and weaknesses in teaching. Besides, with respect to the fact that students, more than all other educational staff are in touch with teaching process and they are able to offer their views on the nature of teaching. Evaluation will often be useful if it is part of a comprehensive assessment program of academic staff and if the feedback data have the necessary validity and reliability.