Teachers’ and students’ perspectives on the needs of community practice teachers: a cross-sectional study

Background An accurate assessment of teaching needs is necessary to ensure targeted teacher training programs are developed and implemented to improve teaching outcomes. The assessment of teaching needs from different perspectives helps to identify teaching needs more accurately. Therefore, based on the different perspectives of teachers and students, this study aimed to identify and evaluate the needs of community practice teachers by measuring discrepancies between perceived teaching importance and actual teaching performance, with a focus on the influencing factors. Methods A survey was circulated to 220 teachers in 36 community health service centers and 695 students in 6 medical schools in Southwest China. The participants anonymously completed the teacher or student version of the Chinese version of the Teacher Teaching Needs Questionnaire, which is predominantly used to assess the teaching needs of teachers. Both versions of the questionnaire include 27 items, covering 3 dimensions (including teaching skills, teaching environments, and teaching contents). The ordinal logistic regression was conducted to explore the factors that influenced teaching needs. Results The teachers and students produced overall self-evaluated teaching needs scores of 0.61 and 0.62 respectively. The teachers from provincial capital cities and low-educated teachers had teaching needs that are lower (OR = 0.641,95% CI: 0.461–0.902, OR = 15.352, 95% CI: 1.253–26.815, separately). Teachers with < 3 years of teaching experience had higher teaching needs (OR = 3.280, 95% CI: 1.153–10.075) than those with > 10 years of experience. Compared with teachers who self-evaluated their teaching outcomes as poor, those who reported extremely excellent (OR = 0.362, 95% CI: 0.220–0.701), excellent (OR = 0.638, 95% CI: 0.426–1.102), and ordinary (OR = 0.714, 95% CI: 0.508–1.034) teaching outcomes had lower teaching needs. Compared with teachers who self-evaluated their teaching abilities as poor, those who reported extremely excellent (OR = 0.536, 95% CI: 0.313–0.934), excellent (OR = 0.805, 95% CI: 0.518–1.269), and ordinary (OR = 0.737, 95% CI: 0.413–1.322) teaching abilities had lower teaching needs. Conclusions Greater assistance should be provided to teachers with lower levels of education, fewer than three years of teaching experience, and who are located in non-capital cities, as these individuals require additional efforts to strengthen competencies. The education department should pay more attention to teacher feedback on practical outcomes and teaching abilities, as this can be used to devise the best teacher development plans. Trial registration Not applicable.