Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the attitudes of faculty who teach at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University toward the guidelines and criteria for IAU Teaching Excellence Award (IAUTEA) to propose an updated and improved teaching award system. To this end, a fully structured questionnaire was developed by the researcher and administered to (325) faculty members. Statistical analysis of the data indicated there was a high level of agreement among respondents regarding the importance of the IAUTEA and the prizes presented to winners, otherwise, there was a moderate level of knowledge and agreement with the current IAUTEA’s general conditions and criteria and with the nomination and selection processes. On the other hand, there was a high level of agreement regarding all suggested revisions and improvements of the award with an overall mean and standard deviation as follows: M=3.50 and StD=.37.
In addition, this study investigated the significant differences in responses with respect to certain demographic variables (academic rank, college cluster, years of experience, and nationality); only years of experience was determined to have a significant difference among respondents (M = 3.41, P< .05) in favor of the older group (20+).
In conclusion, this study proposed a new set of guidelines and criteria for the IAUTEA, including a submission package that could serve as a guideline in the evaluation process of each nominee. Furthermore, certain recommendations are made to ensure the success of the proposed award system.

Key words: eligibility & judging criteria, selection procedure, submission package, teaching excellence award, Saudi faculty.