Introduction

Medical Sciences universities’ main duty is to train skilled and expert manpower to enhance health in the society besides providing health and care services (1). Professors are considered as main factors of this system (2) and play a crucial role in this process since performance and success of the universities in training and educating students is dependent on efficiency and professional qualifications of the professors (1). Professors’ qualifications influence values, behavior, communication, purposes and performance of the educational system (3).

One of the main index and benchmarks of professional qualification for professors who are working in medical sciences fields is teaching, that is considered the most important and complicated qualification among others (research and treatment) (4). Teachers’ qualifications support professional development and curriculum studies. Consequently, it is highly important to discuss about teachers’ abilities and qualifications in order to upgrade teaching-learning process in educational system (3). The universities, in order to accomplish their mission and goals, need teachers that have knowledge and professional skills as well as other teaching skills. However, these skills are not gained sufficiently during education at university (4).

Therefore, the empowerment of faculty members for professional development (in relation to education) and achievement of educational purposes is very important so that they can be prepared for their influential and practical educational role. The requisite for empowerment of faculty members of medical schools in the field of education is to design and conduct empowerment programs influentially and use appropriate educational approaches to enhance capabilities of human resources. In this regard, education development centers of medical sciences have taken effective measures such as holding teachers’ empowerment programs during last years. However, it seems that the provided programs were not consistent with the real needs of teachers and educational programs were provided inappropriately and lack of review to the subjects of the programs has reduced effectiveness (5,6).

Teachers’ empowerment programs should enhance necessary general and professional capabilities that will not be achieved only if empowerment educational program be designed to produce and enhance these competencies (7). One of the approaches to develop competencies and capabilities is “Competency based training”. This method is highly considered since the educational programs are designed based on results and consequences and nowadays efficiency and result of learning are very important (7, 8)

In competency based training, the qualifications of each profession are specified (9, 10). Then developmental programs and personal education to gain the qualifications are design and conducted for each person (11, 12). Competency model leads to provide a structure for the profession and also a scale to assess the performance. Moreover, organizations can easily compare peoples’ competencies with the required competencies for the job (13).

They believe that some traits of competency based training are as follow: emphasis on the results of education, simple approach, targeted training and facilitating the evaluation of performance in this type of education, individual training and influential leading of learning experiences via permanent feedback (7). One of the researches states that models and patterns related to educational issues similar to competency based training that is presented simple, fluent and without specialized terminology can have effective application in medical teachers’ empowerment (14,15).

Recently, this approach is considered in professional teaching and training of medicine and can be stated that it is a new approach in medicine (16,17,18). However, designing programs in accordance with competency approach requires precise programming, preparation and commitment of all involved people in education (19,20). Meanwhile, one of the main steps of competency based training is to have a model and pattern of competency (specifying the features of capabilities) and specify credibility; this model can be used for different purposes such as selection and recruitment, needs-assessment and educational programming, enhancement and empowerment of people and supervision on performance (21).

Competency model is a model of required abilities and behavior to do professional activities successfully. Competency is a vast domain of traits and characteristics including knowledge, skills, abilities, attributes, attitudes and interactions, motivations and behavior that can enable the person to do his job effectively and efficiently (22). To design competency model and credibility, it seems necessary to specify and identify these competencies to program for the group empowerment. Therefore, the present study attempts to study the credibility of competency model required for teachers of medical university that is devised in another research by Mohammad Hosseinzadeh and Karami (2014) via descriptive study (23).   

The meaning of teachers’ educational qualifications is the traits that help him/her in teaching properly (24). In an article named teachers’ competencies, the competencies were mentioned in 9 arenas: competencies in relation to field, competencies in relation to research, competencies in relation to curriculum, competencies in relation to permanent learning, cultural-social competencies, competencies related to affection, communicational competencies, competencies of information technology, environmental competencies, teachers’ competencies about values, behavior, communication, purposes and actions that influence their performance at school. The purpose of the present study is to credit these competencies.

Methods

This is a descriptive cross-sectional study . This study was conducted in 2014.This study used census. Informed consent was given from all the participants. The questionier emailed for all faculty member. After 20 days sent remail. The sample includes 125 faculty members of medical sciences of university of Mashhad. The data were collected via a questionnaire designed by researcher that was based on another research conducted by Mohammad Hosseinzadeh and Karami (2014) that devised educational qualifications pattern of faculty members of ... University of Medical Sciences from professors and students’ perspective. The validity of the questionnaire was assessed according to experts’ ideas and reliability was confirmed based on Cronbach’s alpha (0/9). The questionnaire had 24 items; and in total, 4 domains of competencies that are required for the success of teachers of medical sciences. According to the results of Mohammad Hosseinzadeh and Karami (2014), the researchers concluded that if a faculty member wants to be successful in education should have a number of competencies including medicine, research, teaching and general. The questionnaires were distributed both on paper and by emails. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS software. One sample t test and pearson correlation were used for data analysis according to data distribution.

Results

The results of the current study answers to 5 questions that were put in the questionnaire:

1. What is the perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences toward the importance of educational qualifications required for teachers in different domains including medicine, research, teaching and general?

The data related to this question were analyzed. The collected results are analyzed by t-test and presented in table 1.

Table 1: analyzing perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences toward required educational qualifications for teachers (comparing with cut-off point 50%, corresponding with x=2/5)

 Among the variables, the average score of the perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences had higher test value in compare with required educational qualifications for professors. In general, there was a positive attitude toward required educational competencies

1. Is there any significant difference between desired position and the perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical sciences toward educational qualifications required for teachers in different areas including medicine, research, teaching and general?

In the following, in order to realize the positive or negative perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences toward educational qualifications required for professors in compare with desired position, the average of their opinion of variables was compared with cut-off point 75% (x=3); and as it is showed, generally the average score of educational qualifications required for faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in compare with educational qualifications required for professors in all variables was higher than test value and faculty members agreed and had positive attitude toward the four dimensions. (table2)

Table (2): analyzing the perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences toward educational qualifications required for professors (comparing with cut-off point 66%, corresponding with x=3)

1. What is the perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences toward each educational qualification required for professors?

Since the average score of the perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in compare with educational qualifications required for professors was higher than test value in all variables, therefore, they totally have positive attitude toward educational qualifications and assume that all of them are necessary to be successful in education process. (table 3)

Table (3): analyzing the perspective of members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences toward each educational qualifications required for professors (comparing with cut-off point 50%, corresponding to x=2.5

1. Is there any significant difference between the perspectives of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences toward each educational qualification required for professor and desired position?

In general, the average score of the perspective of faculty members toward educational qualifications required for professors was higher than test values in all variables except the ones that will be mentioned in the following and they assumed them to be necessary to be successful in teaching. However, the perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences toward educational qualifications required for professors included qualifications to document learning experiences (t= 1.918, df=116, p=0.058), research qualification in education (t= 0.360, df= 116, p=0.720),  skills of teaching public health to society (t=0.127, df=116, p=0.899), health economy (t=1. 972, df= 116, p=0.052), skill in assessing program and using new program assessment methods (t=1.415, df=116, p=0.160), and teaching adult skill (t=0.818, df=116, p=0.415), these variables have no significance difference (p>0.05)

1. What is the relationship between different educational qualifications required for teachers in difference arenas including medial, research, teaching and general from the perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences?

Finally, Pearson’s correlation coefficient was used to analyze the relationship between different variables and the perspective of faculty members toward different educational qualifications required for professors in medical, research, teaching and general arenas. As it is presented in the table below, the results showed that there is significance difference between variables. Moreover, the level of significance was positive in different variables (p<0.01) .(table4)

Table (4): level of correlation between different educational qualifications required for professors in the fields of medicine, research, teaching and general from the perspective of faculty members of Mashhad University of Medical Sciences.

Discussion

Professors and teachers of medical sciences university play a crucial role in the achievement of the university in education. If the universities want to achieve their purposes, the teachers should have required capabilities and qualifications to provide professional services in their field and also have other qualifications related to education arena.

Consequently, in order to empower faculty members for professional development (in relation with education) and achieve educational goals, it is essential to upgrade faculty members' performance. Faculty members' empowerment in educational issues, designing and performing empowerment programs and using appropriate educational approaches in development of capabilities and potentialities of human resources is an essence. One of these approaches is “Competency Based Training” (8, 17, 18). A main characteristic of this method is to determine specific and local competencies (25).

One of the main steps of Competency Based Training is Competency Model (determining a list of instances of these features) and to validate. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to credit competency model for the professors of medical university for achievement in education that was developed by Mohammad Hosseinzadeh and Karami (23). The results of the study showed that almost all of professors of medical sciences university consider all competencies in the model necessary to achieve educational purposes, and confirmed the credit of model. These findings were compatible with other studies in this field (24,25, 28,29). It seems that this model can provide a structure to explain profession and teaching. It also provides an assessment scale to evaluate teachers' performance; moreover, teaching performance of faculty members can be evaluated by Medical Sciences University. In addition, this model can be used for other purposes such as selection and recruitment of faculty members of Medical Sciences University, educational assessment and planning, upgrade and empower human resources and supervision on performance.