BackgroundThe recent expansion of higher education institutions in Ethiopia provides an opportunity for many citizens who did not previously have access to higher or university level education. This opportunity, however, comes with its own challenges, such as ensuring that minimum standards are set and maintaining quality where pedagogical concerns are compromised. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of teaching without pedagogical training, in St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College (SPHMMC), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.MethodsAn institutional-based qualitative phenomenological study was conducted through an in-depth interview, using purposive sampling techniques. Participants were instructors and students selected from SPHMMC who had participated in the teaching or learning process or at least 24 months. Owing to data saturation, only 16 instructors and seven students were interviewed, using open-ended and semi-structured questions. Tape recorders and field notes were used. Based on thematic aggregation, the content of the responses was analyzed.ResultsOnly one of the 16 instructors had received pedagogical training for more than one year. Twelve instructors had received 2 days to 2 weeks of training, and the rest were using a personal method of teaching. During the recruitment procedure, only one instructor had been asked to verify their pedagogical background. However, all respondents confirmed that pedagogical training is very important to facilitate the teaching-learning process. In this study, most of the instructors practiced their personal teaching methods, which resulted in no common delivery system of teaching content, which can be huge, no lesson plan, no clear objectives to courses, poor time management, different instructors having overlapping course content, no table of specifications, and no proper evaluation mechanisms for either the students’ or the teachers’ performance. On the students’ side, because of the vast and unplanned course content and poor time management, their participation in the learning process was insufficient, which could affect their learning.ConclusionBecause of the gap in pedagogical training, college teachers use personal teaching methods, and this negatively affects the standardization of delivery methods. To improve this drawback, proper pedagogical training should be provided for all teachers. This would help them to deliver quality education and to produce competent graduates from the institute to supply the workforce.