Self and Peer Assessment of Teachers' Attitude towards Teaching.

OBJECTIVE: To appraise the attitude of the teachers towards teaching and the factors affecting their attitudes, and compare self-assessed attitudes of the medical teachers with teachers in social sciences. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional descriptive study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY: Wah Medical College (WMC), Wah Cantt, from January to August 2016. METHODOLOGY: Teachers were categorized as having positive, average, and below average attitudes on the basis of a close-ended questionnaire comprising of 32 items. All the items were ranked on 5 points Likert-scale. Questionnaires were filled by the teachers twice, first for themselves and then for their peers. RESULTS: There were 91 self-assessments [53 medical teachers (MT) and 38 social sciences teachers (SST)], and 59 peer assessments (31 MT and 28 SST). Overall, the attitude of teachers was average as 99 teachers (66%) fell in this category. Out of 53 MT, 9 (17%) had a positive attitude and 43 (81.1%) had average attitude. Out of 38 SST, 5 (13.2%) had positive attitude and 21 (55.3%) had average attitude. MT self-accounted attitude was significantly higher than the SST (x²=15.975, p=<0.001) in comparison to peer assessed attitude, which was equal in the two groups (x²=2.778, p=0.249). Variables significantly associated with good attitude, were female gender, junior designation and more experienced. CONCLUSION: Overall teachers attitude was average in both faculties. But the self-accounted attitude was higher among MT than SST. Teachers who are junior in qualification and designation, females, medical by profession, and more experienced need to improve their self-assessment and reflection skills.