Identifying and Prioritizing the Dimensions of Leading Professors Change in Babol University of Medical Sciences

Purpose: Considering the role and importance of leading professors in improving and promoting the quality of education and the position of the university, the present study was conducted with the purpose of identifying and prioritizing the dimensions of leading professor’s change in Babol University of Medical Sciences. Methodology: This study in terms of purpose was applied and in terms of implementation method was mixed (qualitative and quantitative). The research population in the qualitative part was the universal experts of Babol University of Medical Sciences in the 2020-21 academic years with number of 20 people, which according to the principle of theoretical saturation number of 10 people of them were selected as a sample by purposive sampling. The research population in the quantitative part was the faculty members of Babol University of Medical Sciences in the 2020-21 academic years with number of 348 people, which according to Cochran's formula number of 183 people of them were selected as a sample by stratified sampling method with scientific rank. The instrument of the present study in the qualitative part was a semi-structured interview and in the quantitative part was a researcher-made questionnaire of leading professors (80 questions), whose psychometric indices were confirmed. The qualitative part data were analyzed by coding method in MAXQDA-2018 software and the quantitative part data were analyzed by exploratory factor analysis in SPSS-23 software. Findings: The findings of the qualitative part showed that the leading professors had 80 indicators in 12 components and 3 dimensions of educational, research and individual. The findings of the quantitative part showed that the factor load of all three dimensions of educational (and its 5 components including teaching skills, educational technology, management of education, evaluation skills and observance of educational rules), research (and its 2 components including knowledge research and research ethics) and individual (and its 5 components including physical characteristics, professional ethics, honesty, creativity and discipline) were obtained higher than 0.70, the average variance extracted of all were obtained higher than 0.80 and the reliability of Cronbach's alpha and combination of all were obtained higher than 0.90. Other findings showed that the dimensions of educational, individual and research had more factor load, respectively, and in the educational dimension the factor load of teaching skills component, in the research dimension the factor load of research ethics component and in the individual dimension the factor load of honesty was more than other components. Conclusion: According to the results of the present study, in order to create and improve the leading professors in the university, should be upgraded the dimensions of educational, individual and research and the components with more factors load in each dimension, respectively.