Aligning teaching practices with an understanding of quality teaching: a faculty development agenda

To guide the future faculty development practices in a better manner, it is important to determine how clinical teachers perceive their own skill development.

The objective of this study was to examine the extent to which clinical teachers aligned their teaching practices, as measured with a self-rating instrument, with their understanding of what constitutes good clinical teaching.

A sample of 1523 residents and 737 faculty members completed the clinical teaching perception inventory (CTPI) online and ranked 28 single-word descriptors that characterized clinical teachers along a seven-point scale in two measures, "My Ideal Teacher" and "Myself as a Teacher."

Faculty and residents showed strikingly similar discrepancies, in both their magnitudes and directions, between their ratings of "My Ideal Teacher" and those of "Myself as a Teacher." Both residents and faculty found it most difficult to develop the stimulating, well-read, and innovative nature to meet their own standards.

Data did not support our hypothesis that faculty would demonstrate stronger congruence between "My Ideal Teacher" and "Myself as a Teacher" than residents. Medical faculty would benefit from future faculty development practices that are designed to assist them in becoming stimulating, well-read, and innovative teachers, while using less control and caution in their teaching.