Introduction

The core of education is teaching and learning, and learning takes place best when there are effective teachers. One of the ways to determine the effectiveness of teaching is through students’ evaluation of teachers and surveys that students complete each academic term [1]. Evaluation is a pervasive and essential process that is recognized as a principle in educational organizations [2, 3]. Because evaluation helps to measure the quantity and quality of education in universities and educational institutions. University teachers are considered the main pillars of education in the modern educational system’s structure and framework, and their performance plays a critical role in the overall effectiveness of the education system [4]. Faculty evaluation is one of the most complicated types of evaluation, and its complexity is due to the lack of credibility and accuracy of the tools and measurement methods used. Therefore, it is suggested that different aspects of evaluation should be considered for the final judgment, taking into account various evaluation criteria [5].

However, there are various ambiguities about the desirable and deserving characteristics of a good teacher. Some believe that a desirable teacher is someone who has expertise in their field of study and can provide high levels of knowledge and expertise in related areas. Others believe that the knowledge and skills should be practical and applicable. Some also consider the ability to cultivate ethical matters in students and the role of guidance to be important, and in fact, they have given the highest score to the personal and ethical characteristics of the teacher [6]. Nobakht et al., 2013 also was shown that students rated the control and management methods of the class, the personal and social appearance of teachers, and the mutual relationships between teachers and students as the most important factors [7]. In another study, 94% of students considered teachers scientific mastery of the subject matter, 91% of students, teachers expression power, and 90%, teachers efforts in clarifying scientific concepts as essential evaluation criteria for teachers [8]. Studies have shown the existence of gender bias in students’ evaluations of teaching [9, 10]. Some studies have reported that students’ criteria for judging their teachers can be different from their actual teaching quality [11]. The results of some research showed a positive relationship, when teacher was knowledgeable, friendly, and fair from the students’ point of view, higher evaluation scores were reported [12]. The main problem of the evaluation systems used in universities is that it only takes into account some specific aspects of teaching, including the transparency and ethics of teachers, which cannot accurately reflect the quality of teaching and learning [13]. Understanding students’ opinions about factors affecting the evaluation of teachers can provide useful guidance for addressing existing problems. Additionally, identifying strengths and weaknesses in the evaluation of teachers can help educational planners develop a program to improve and enhance the quality of evaluation. Considering the various factors discussed in the studies, also the existence of some contradictions in these studies and the ambiguities in this regard, this study was conducted to investigate factors affecting the evaluation of teachers’ medical universities. Researchers in order to answer the research question, what are the factors affecting the evaluation of teachers’ medical universities from the students’ point of view? They conducted a systematic review with the aim of investigating factors affecting the evaluation of teachers’ medical universities from the students’ point of view.

Methods

Systematic review protocol

A systematic review was conducted based on a predesigned protocol in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement [14].

Search strategy

During the period of January 2014 to June 2022, a search was conducted in databases and search engines, including Pubmed, Web of Science, Scopus, Cochrane, Google Scholar, and ScienceDirect, Magiran, SID, Iran Doc using keywords such as evaluation, assessment, estimate appraisal, appraisal faculty member, professor, university, college, as well as their MeSH equivalents, using the “AND” and “OR” operators.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

The present study is designed to answer the question of investigating factors affecting the evaluation of teachers’ medical universities from the perspective of students. The inclusion criteria for articles include being available, published in reputable research and university journals, including descriptive, observational, and qualitative studies, the presence of keywords or their equivalents in the title or abstract, and articles in both English and Persian. The exclusion criteria include articles that did not address evaluation in universities and did not focus on teachers in medical sciences.

Study selection, data extraction and study quality

Figure 1 depicts the study selection and review processes. During the search process, a total of 3,949 articles were found. After removing duplicates and reviewing the titles, abstracts, and full texts, 21 studies were ultimately included in the analysis. The references of the final articles were also reviewed. The STROBE and COREQ checklists were used to evaluate the quality of articles. The STROBE checklist contains 22 items and 34 sub-items, 20 articles were evaluated by this checklist. Scores of 0–1 and 2 were given for each sub-item based on its correctness, uncertainty, or incorrectness. The maximum and minimum scores obtained were 48 and 34, respectively. To evaluate the quality of a qualitative article, the COREQ checklist, which contains 32 items, was used. Scores of 0 and 1 were given based on reporting or non-reporting of each item, and the article’s score was 13. Data extraction was performed using a checklist including author information, publication year, study objective, study design, sample size, data collection method, and results. The results obtained from the analysis of the articles were summarized and reported. All search, review, and quality assessment steps were performed by two researchers (F.F and Z.S) and in cases of disagreement, a third researcher (Kh.Sh) was consulted. To access the proposal of this study, you can contact the corresponding author.

Fig. 1
figure 1

PRISMA flow diagram of the study selection process

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Results

The search yielded 3949 articles from databases. After removing duplicates, 2797 articles remained; their titles and abstracts were scanned, and 763 relevant articles were identified. The full texts of these 763 articles were reviewed. Among the included articles, 21 original articles were undergone further data extraction and analysis. The key information of the 21 original articles is summarized in Table 1.

Table 1 Studies included in the analysis process regarding factors affecting the evaluation of teachers’ medical universities from the students’ point of view
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The study was carried out on 130,187 student samples from studies conducted in Iran, the United States, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Oman, and the Philippines. Based on the findings of the reviewed articles, the factors affecting the evaluation of teachers’ medical universities from the students’ point of view were identified and these factors were categorized by the researchers, which can be introduced in 6 dimensions and 53 components. The 6 dimensions include: individual and professional characteristics of the educational system with 26 components, attitude within the educational system with 7 components, educational programs and guides with 3 components, teaching methodology with 7 components, internal coherence of educational resources with 4 components, and evaluation system information with 6 components. The dimension of individual and professional characteristics of the educational system, which has more components than other dimensions, and more studies pointed out these components. The most important components of this dimension include: individual and social characteristics, teachers’ scientific mastery, teaching quality, communication skills, ability to attract students’ attention, and classroom management. In the dimension of attitude within the educational system, respect for students, teacher’s attitude, support for students were among the most important components of this dimension. The dimension of educational programs and guides consist of linking content with different career, matching competencies with career development and appropriate planning. The teaching methodology dimension includes important components, encouraging and giving motivation, involving students in discussions, presenting lessons in a practical way, using interactive and innovative teaching methods. The most important components of the internal coherence of educational resources include helping to identify related sources and books, organizing the content, fully explaining lesson objectives and presenting lesson plan. In the dimension of evaluation system information, evaluation skills, appropriateness between course content and exam questions, diversity of student learning evaluation procedures, providing timely feedback are important components. The dimensions and components extracted from the studies are detailed in Table 2.

Table 2 Classification of evaluation dimensions and its components
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Discussion

This systematic review study was conducted with the aim of investigating the factors affecting the evaluation of teachers’ medical universities from the perspective of students.

The results of the reviewed articles showed that these factors can be categorized into six dimensions: Individual and professional characteristics of the educational system, attitude within the educational system, educational programs and guides, teaching methodology, internal consistency of educational resources, and evaluation system information. Each dimension and extracted components were discussed with other studies. Which will be explained as follows.

Individual and professional characteristics of the educational system

Siamian’s et al., 2013 study showed that “proficiency in expression” is one of the most important characteristics of a good teacher [34]. On the other hand, the El-Sayed et al., 2018 study, many students believed that the personality and attractiveness of faculty members affect their ranking [26]. However, this result was not found in Amr’s et al, 2012 study [35], which may be because more than 90% of the students in the El-Sayed study [26]were female. Mohammadi et al., 2015 believed that interaction between students and other students, faculty members, and staff in the university environment increases their satisfaction and interest and affects the evaluation of students’ performance by teachers [36]. Similar results were found in a study conducted on Omani nursing students, which showed that professional competence of mentors was considered the most important evaluation feature, and the relationship between mentors and students was the second most important feature [37]. The results of the Daragahi et al., 2013 demonstrated classroom management received the highest score among the areas of teacher evaluation, followed by course content management, professional role, and teaching and guidance [38]. In some cases, female teachers received better evaluations than male teachers. This difference and lack of agreement between studies suggests that gender bias in student evaluations depends on university background, field, and student body [39]. On the other hand, the findings showed that there is racial bias in the evaluation of teachers, so that people of color, especially black faculty members, were ranked lower than their white counterparts [40]. Evidence showed that older teachers scored lower, but these results disappeared after controlling for other influential factors in evaluation, such as physical appearance and course difficulty [41]. However, in some studies, even after controlling for other influential factors in student evaluation of teachers, it was shown that older teachers receive lower scores [42, 43].

Attitude within the educational system

Respect is considered a sign of value, and the fact that students feel respected by their teachers may be associated with higher levels of security and comfort in academic participation. Students also reported experiencing or witnessing demeaning statements, nonverbal disregard, and differential treatment by instructors [44]. The results of the Malekshahi et al., 2011 study showed that students prioritize respect for the student as a very important factor in evaluation [45]. The results of some researches also showed that the availability of the teacher and the time spent on solving students’ educational problems are influential factors in the evaluation of teachers, and students believed that such teachers would receive better grades in evaluation [8, 46]. As our study also showed, the type of behavior, attitude, and approach of the educational system towards students in the evaluation of this group is very important and is one of the pillars that students learn from.

Educational programs and guides

Students considered proper planning as one of the dimensions of evaluating teachers. The results indicated that students consider seriousness, planning, and organization of topics to be highly important [34, 47]. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that teachers proficiency in lesson planning and organization plays a significant role in evaluating students [48]. This study also showed that expressing the link between topics and various professional aspects, required professional competencies, and appropriate planning for courses are among the factors that have an impact on evaluating teachers by students in this dimension.

Teaching methodology

In Lopez’s et al., 2015 study, it is stated that teachers should decide on what methods to use in the classroom (individual, group, collaborative, etc.), what teaching and learning strategies to implement, what types of social relationships and groupings to create with their students, what types of activities to propose and in what order, and how to deal with the diversity of students [16]. The use of innovative and different teaching techniques instead of just lecturing leads to better evaluation of teachers by students, and having a lot of knowledge does not necessarily make someone a good teacher [20]. One of the dimensions of teachers evaluation by students is the use of instructional aids relevant to the subject [47]. In today’s age, a teacher must be aware, prepared, and familiar with the latest science. Preparedness does not mean accumulating information, but rather educational and research abilities, and awareness of innovative teaching methods is one of the necessities of this key role [49]. In our study, in addition to the mentioned cases, it was shown that encouraging and motivating students, encouraging them to participate in discussions and presenting lessons practically, and considering the proportionality of the materials to the students level of knowledge are taken into account in evaluating teachers.

Internal coherence of teaching resources

Educational resources encompass a wide range of techniques, strategies, tools, and materials, from white/blackboards and markers to videos and the use of the internet [16]. A study showed that approximately 88% of the surveyed students considered the organization of instructional materials, fairness in grading, and learning of the taught materials to be very important in evaluating teachers [50]. On the other hand, helping students identify relevant course materials and textbooks by teachers and providing a comprehensive description of lesson objectives and presenting a lesson plan are also considered important by students.

Evaluation system information

The term “evaluation system” refers to a systematic set of processes that collects, analyzes, and interprets relevant information used to measure or describe each aspect of the educational reality, and based on this description, develops a value judgment using a criterion or model as a decision-making basis. Value judgments are made about various aspects that affect the teaching-learning process and confirm the skills acquired [51]. Skills in evaluation by teachers include the alignment of course content and exam questions, conducting progress evaluation tests, diversity in learning evaluation methods for students, and timely feedback to students, among other things.

Conclusion

The ultimate goal of the higher education system is to provide conditions for students to acquire knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and the main responsibility lies with the members of the faculty. Therefore, the need for continuous evaluation by stakeholders leads to the promotion and excellence of the university, and considering the students’ perspective as part of the university’s educational process is recommended to address deficiencies and improve education. The study results showed that from the students’ point of view, the individual and professional characteristics of the educational system, attitude within the educational system, educational programs and guides, teaching methodology, internal coherence of educational resources, and evaluation system information are factors affecting the evaluation of teachers. The results obtained in this study can be used in the selection of teachers and faculty members of universities because these results are derived from the factors affecting the evaluation of teachers from the students’ point of view. Also, by holding practical educational workshops that take into account the dimensions and components extracted in this study, it is possible to increase the quality of teaching and learning.

Weaknesses, strengths and limitations of the study

The strength of this study is the extensive review of databases and search engines, as well as the high sample size of the studies examined. The weakness of this study is the failure to consider articles in languages other than English and Persian, as well as only considering the students’ perspective and not taking into account the teachers’ perspective regarding the evaluation of teachers, which could be addressed in another project. It is recommended that future studies also consider intervention research. One limitation of the study was the lack of access to the full text of some articles.