Medical student and academic staff perceptions of role models: an analytical cross-sectional study

Staff and students were questioned about the characteristics of their colleagues and lecturers, respectively. They were asked about 15 characteristics under four headings: personality, teaching skill, group working and overall performance as a role model.Associations between lecturers' characteristics were explored using Pearson correlation and characteristics were allocated into groups by partition cluster method. In addition, predictors of being a valuable lecturer were assessed using logistic regression analysis.Based on staff responses, the strongest association observed was between honesty and being respectful (r = 0.93, p < 0.0001). Based on student responses, the strongest association observed was between being professional and honesty (r = 0.98, p < 0.0001). None of the correlations between student and staff perceptions were significant for any characteristic.Two groups were recognized among the characteristics. group one contained those characteristics which were related to the lecturer's activity; while the second group contained characteristics that were related to the personality or teaching performance of the lecturer.The predictors of lecturer as 'role model' (i.e., perceptions of students) consisted mostly of characteristics from the first group, while the predictors of a 'role model' by fellow academic staff consisted of characteristics that were in both groups.These findings showed considerable differences between the perceptions of students about their lecturers when compared with perceptions of staff about their colleagues. Students were more concerned with the personality of their lecturers, while staff also considered their ideas and behaviors. This suggests that a more comprehensive assessment of a lecturer's performance could be obtained by taking into account feedback from both students and colleagues.In addition to knowledge and skills, the personality of a lecturer plays an important role in the learning process. Exposing students to excell