Student-Faculty Interactions and its Consequences for
Educational Achievement
Seyyed Ali Haerizadeh
Ahmadreza Asgharpour
Mohsen Noghani
Promoting university students’ educational achievement is one of the most important
tasks of any university. Researches in the related fields show that university students’
educational achievement is affected by many diverse factors. One of the social factors is
student-faculty interaction. Qualitative observations of researchers show that many
students complain about weakness of their relationship with faculty members and also
many faculty members complain about weakness of this relationship. Data gathered from
students in Engineering Faculty and Humanities Faculty in one of the biggest universities
in Iran show that there is significant difference between two faculties in frequency of
student-faculty interactions: There is a smaller gap between students and faculties in
Humanities Faculty. Also gender is an important factor: females have more frequent
interactions with their professors in relation to male students. In both faculties frequency
of student-faculty interaction has a positive affect on educational achievement. This
shows that among other important factors that affect educational achievement, studentfaculty relationship is an important factor. Filling the gap between students and faculty
members has many positive consequences for students, faculty members and for
university. This can be done by some changes in formal and informal norms of
university. Development of faculty members’ research duties can force them to have
more efficient interactions with students.
Keywords: Educational Achievement, Engineering Faculty, Humanities Faculty,
Student-Faculty Interaction, University