Background and Aim: Teaching is defined as a set of interactive, targeted measures designed, performed, and evaluated by the lecturer. In this process, lecturer and students can be affected. Effective teaching requires strong links between objectives, teaching, learning, and training methods. This study was conducted to determine viewpoints of the students in Kurdistan University of Medical Sciences and Islamic Azad University, Sanandaj Branch about effective teaching and its related factors.

Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study included 520 students from Kurdistan university of Medical Sciences and Islamic Azad university of Sanandaj. We used a questionnaire including demographic data (age, gender, field of the study, course of the study, etc.) and 23 questions on the characteristics of effective teaching for data collection. Using SPSS version 16, data were analyzed by descriptive statistics such as frequency, mean, S.D; and, analytical statistics such as U Mann-Whitney and Kruskal- Wallis tests.   

Results: The most important features of effective teaching from the view point of the students were teacher's mastery (4.46±0.83) and interest (4.45±0.83). The least important characteristics of effective teaching were easy access to the teacher outside the classroom (3.84±0.91) and using teaching aids by the teacher (3.67±1.10). There were statistically significant differences between gender of the students and teaching method (p=0.007) and personal characteristics (p=0.02).

Conclusion: To improve the quality of education in these universities, it is recommended that characteristics such as teacher’s mastery and interest in their fields of teaching be considered important.

Keywords: Effective teaching, Teacher, Student, Attitude, Scholarship, Teaching method, Individual characteristic.

Received: Oct 04, 2015      Accepted: Jan 06, 2016