Teaching styles of medical teachers: Are the teaching styles of basic and clinical teachers different?

Background: The main responsibility of medical teachers is teaching and training of students. Knowing the teaching styles of teachers and modifying their educational strategies can be effective in improving the quality of education. The purpose of this study was to determine and compare the teaching style of basic and clinical medical teachers in ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in 2021.Method: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 131 medical teachers in Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences from April to June 2021. The data collection instrument was Grasha-Riechmann’s questionnaire, which includes 40 questions in 5 sections. Data was analyzed by SPSS 18 software.Results: The average age of the study population was 46.56±8.65 years, with more than half being females (57.6%), and clinical teachers (56.5%). The preferred teaching style of medical teachers was as follows: Expert style (28.2%), facilitator style (26.7%), Formal Authority (20.6%), Delegator (14.5%), and Personal Model (9.9%). There was a significant difference between the teaching styles of basic and clinical teachers and basic teachers use more the facilitator style; while clinical teachers use more expert style (p=0.001). There was no significant difference between the teaching styles by age, gender, teaching experience, and academic rank.Conclusion: This study showed that medical teachers prefer expert and facilitator teaching style. These findings can help medical teachers to modify their teaching styles for effective learning.