Teaching Effectiveness During Lectures in Universiti Sains Malaysia School of Medical Sciences

Lecturers are expected to teach effectively and evaluating their teaching effectiveness are essential to ensure students get the best learning experience. A systematic evaluation of teaching behaviours with a proper feedback mechanism will help to improve their teaching effectiveness. Improvement of teaching effectiveness will result in better students’ learning experience, and thus attaining the intended educational outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate teaching effectiveness among lecturers by assessing their teaching behaviours during lectures. A cross-sectional study was conducted on lecturers in a Malaysian public medical school. Their teaching behaviours were rated by 30 trained pre- clinical medical students using Teacher Behaviour Inventory (TBI) on seven aspects – organisation, speechpacing, clarity, enthusiasm, interaction, rapport, and disclosure. A total of 55 lecturers were rated by the medical students. The organisation and speech-pacing aspects were highly rated as the mean scores were 4.02 and 4.15, respectively. The clarity, enthusiasm, interaction, and rapport aspects attained satisfactory level as the mean scores ranged from 3.10 to 3.59. The disclosure aspect was poorly rated as the mean score was 2.20. Eventhough all lecturers in this school are considered expert in their area, findings from this study suggest that some teaching behaviour need some improvement. Findings from this study also provide useful data for the medical school to chart direction of faculty development activities to improve their lecturers’ teaching effectiveness during lectures.