A CROSS-SECTIONAL RESEARCH TO ASSESS THE RELATIVE INFLUENCE OF GENDER OF THE MENTORS ON THE TEACHING OF MEDICAL STUDENTS

Background: This research is based on evaluating the relative preferences of mentors based on gender by the students of Allama Iqbal Medical College. A mentor is someone who is tasked with imparting knowledge to students. To determine the effect of the mentors` gender on teaching effectiveness we distributed questionnaires to the students from 1^st to 5^th-year M.B.B.S.

Objective: To determine the relative preferences of either male or female mentors by the medical students.

Method: It was a cross-sectional study on the students of Allama Iqbal Medical College (1^st to final year), public sector college affiliated with Jinnah Hospital from April 2016 to June 2016. A sample of 300 students was selected. Sampling technique was convenient sampling.

Data collection and Analysis: 60 students per class were given a questionnaire on basis of convenient sampling, containing 20 questions each. The data was analyzed using SPSS.

Results: In a sample size of 300, 44% preferred male mentors and 18.3% preferred female mentors while the rest had no preference based on gender. 

Conclusion: Most of the students had preferred male mentors to females, based on certain attitudes that they believe the male teachers had. However, these people comprise less than half of the sample size, with a major portion not having any preference and a small portion favouring female teachers.

Keywords: Mentor, Student and Gender.