Magic of Choosing Suitable Course Coordinator Based on Students’ Feedback: A Single Center Experience from Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Background. Medical education is an unusual field whereby a teacher does not receive formal training to become a teacher and is usually marred by quality and effectiveness in imparting the curriculum. To add to the insult, the additive burden of administrating the implementation of the courses does affect the teaching capabilities of a particular teacher. At the College of Medicine (COM), a rigorous procedure for selecting suitable “course coordinators” is followed as they not only serve as administrators for the curriculum implementation but also serve as the role models for the students and their peers as well. Each course coordinator is an important cogwheel in the curriculum as each one can have a positive impact on the overall quality and success of the program. At COM, twenty-one courses are taught in the curriculum, and the execution of each course is led by the duo of coordinator and co-coordinator. The course coordinator is the one primarily involved in the execution, selection of faculty, ensuring smooth flow and delivery of objectives, finalizing and execution of the exam, and responding to students and faculty’s needs during and after the course execution and is the primary person to suggest an effective action plan based on needs to improve the course for the upcoming academic year. Aim. The aim of our study was to assess whether a good teacher can be an effective course coordinator and what the impact of a good teacher/course coordinator is on student satisfaction levels. Methods. This study is a descriptive cross-sectional study carried out for five academic years from 2013-14 till 2017-18. The sample included both male and female sections of the medical program, and the courses for the study were selected as consecutive sampling techniques. The data was retrieved from the evaluation units’ records for the period of 2013–18. SPSS version 20.0 was used for data analysis. Results. Our data reflects a strong positive correlation between course coordinator, course coordinator as a faculty, overall evaluation of the course, and mean faculty rating. Additionally, a strong positive correlation between the mean evaluation of all domains and overall course evaluation for both preclinical and clinical years of the medicine program was also found. Conclusions. Carefully selected effective teachers as course coordinators do have a positive impact on two domains of the course quality, that is, overall satisfaction and faculty ratings by medical students.