Iranian Journal of Medical Education

Introduction: Due to the significant role of scholarship in the process of faculty member selection, employment, and promotion in universities, the Ministry of Health added the scholarship of teaching into promotion of faculty members' regulation to improve the educational quality and increase innovation and creativity in the teaching performance of faculty members. Therefore, this study was done to assess faculty members’ performance in scholarship of teaching in 2009-2012 in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences.

Methods: In this descriptive-analytic study, a sample of 127 faculty members of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences who finished the scholarship of teaching credential process between 2009-2012 were studied. The data were collected based on the scores they gained according to the Scholarship of Teaching Committee (approved by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education).Pearsonو Chi-square test and ANOVA-test were used for statistical analysis.

Results:127 (99.2%) of the participants were faculty members. Out of this number, 79 (62%) were applicants for associate professor level, and 42 (6%) were applicants of assistant professor level, and 6 (33%) had applied for full professor level. The level of scholarship activities were in 60.6% of participants exclusively at the university level, while 3.2% gained all credits from ministry activities and 36.2% of participants had activities at the both levels. A significant difference was observed between the different academic ranks regarding activity levels (P=0.002 and x2=12.46) and (P=0.000 and x2=17.64). In the University level activity, course planning with 77% had the highest rate of credentials. No significant relationship was observed between age and scores obtained in regulations. The rate of using different items of the regulation did not show a significant difference regarding different age groups.

Conclusion:The results indicated that less complicated and less timely activities were more frequently presented. Despite of all the advantages of scholarship of teaching process, it may be proposed that the bylaw of teaching scholarship should be revised. It seems necessary that the type of scholar activities should be expanded and the ceiling scores to be reformed. Hence, it may encourage teachers to use from innovative and creative processes and finally improve the quality of education in university