چكيده لاتين :
Objectives: The success in achieving educational goals depends on factors such as the teacher, student, and educational environment. Teaching is one of the main concerns of educational systems across the world. The effective teaching in higher education and universities mainly addresses students and their learning and involves a set of specific skills and competencies focusing on particular contextual needs. It seems that the effective teaching addresses particular needs of a given group of students and revolves around the needs that are embedded in a specific context. Therefore, it is highly important to identify the factors that affect faculty members’ teaching competence from students’ perspective. Also, improving teaching competence can be regarded as an ongoing attempt that plays an important role in providing new possibilities for preparing new teaching strategies and transmitting scientific knowledge. Therefore, conducting such a study addressing faculty members' competencies can provide the opportunity to offer new teaching strategies and transfer scientific knowledge. Furthermore, conducting research projects to identify the components of teaching competencies can be highly valuable in uncovering the existing deficiencies and problems. Such studies may also offer guidelines for overcoming the deficiencies and improving the quality of teaching. In this regard, this study was conducted in order to determine the most important components of teaching competence from the perspective of students at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad.
Methods: Using a phenomenological method, this qualitative study was conducted in Ferdowsi University of Mashhad during 2018-2019. Actually, the aim of the phenomenological studies is to probe into various phenomena as they appear in each individual person's experiences. To collect the data regarding the participants' experiences and meanings, semi-structured interviews were carried out. First, general questions were asked to start the interviews. Then, based on the participants' responses, new questions emerged during the interview process. Interviews were conducted by scheduling and selecting the location based on the participants' opinions. Accordingly, interviews were conducted in the participants' workplaces or educational setting. Each interview lasted from 30 to 45 minutes depending on the participants' preferences and desires. The main participants of the study were 22 students, who were selected using purposeful sampling whereby the researchers sought to select those students, who could be considered as information-rich participants. Sampling continued until saturation occurred and it seemed that no new theme and pattern could be identified with regard to the topic of inquiry. . The collected data were analyzed using the thematic analysis whereby the researchers searched for the repeated meaningful patterns in the obtained qualitative data. A theme is a specific meaning that is derived from a word, a sentence, or even a paragraph. In fact, each theme refers to a meaningful pattern that is observed in the qualitative data based on the topic of inquiry and research questions. In the present study, the researchers started analyzing the data by carefully and repeatedly reading the interviews. In the second step, they carried out the line-by-line analysis. Actually, the most important words, sentences, or paragraphs related to the main topic of the study were marked, highlighted, and coded. In the data analysis, the researchers used the inductive approach whereby the concepts and codes emerged from the qualitative data rather than the existing theories. In the next step, codes were put into thematic categories and clusters and the main themes were obtained. The coding and analysis process continued until the researchers reached the data saturation. Finally, the researchers reviewed and refined the extracted categories of themes based on their similarities and differences, that is, their properties and dimensions. The researchers also selected the relevant quotes and examples from the data extracts to prepare the final report. In addition, the trustworthiness of the analysis was ensured using triangulation, participants’ feedback, and experts’ opinions.
Results: Findings of the study indicated that, from students’ perspective, teaching competence included 31 sub-categories and 6 main categories, which consisted of teaching skills, research competence, relational competence, professional ethics, personal characteristics, and managerial skills. A competent faculty member has sufficient knowledge and information and knows how to teach. Indeed, a competent faculty member knows where and how to utilize the techniques and strategies that are required to make the classroom efficient and effective. It can be said that knowledge, experience, and method are three important factors that play a key role in constructing faculty members' competence and qualification. Also, one of the findings of the study was educational skills. Educational skills include subcategories of the scientific and professional specificity, effective transfer of materials, use of appropriate lesson plans, and the systematic evaluation of teaching materials. This theme refers to teachers' ability to apply teaching methods, principles, and strategies in the classroom in a way that they can lead to the successful classroom management. In explaining these dimensions and components, it can be said that faculty members should not only have the specialized skills but they should also be capable of transferring knowledge and managing the classroom. A faculty member should take into account important factors such as students' ability to select appropriate teaching resources and texts and should design lesson plans based on contextual needs and requirements. Implications drawn from the present study suggest that the determination of the components of teaching competence in faculty members can offer guidelines for determining teachers’ path and strategies of cultivation programs on which university administrators can take appropriate measures in order to develop teaching competencies in faculty members and improve the quality of university teaching. University professors can also be empowered to adapt the existing model to their teaching experiences to achieve effective teaching. In general, faculty members can guarantee the existence of the educational system. Therefore, improving faculty members' abilities and competencies can enhance the quality of teaching. Furthermore, the enhancement of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral competencies in faculty members will lead to the innovation in teaching as well as the promotion of students' academic achievement and success. Thus, it is necessary and highly important to equip university faculty members with the competencies and capabilities that are required to achieve the professional success.
