Impact of a teaching rotation on residents' attitudes toward teaching: a 5-year study

Residents play a tremendous role in educating medical students and other residents during their training. Many residency programs have thus instituted formal instruction on teaching. This 5-year study was conducted to quantitatively evaluate the impact of a teaching rotation on residents' attitudes towards teaching.

Residents participated in a 1-month teaching rotation, which included didactic sessions as well as protected time to practice their teaching skills. Before and after the rotation, residents anonymously filled out surveys regarding their attitudes towards teaching. Data were collected from 73 residents from July 2004 to September 2009. The data were analyzed using a 2-tailed t-test with independent variables and a 1-way ANOVA followed by a posttest.

Four categories showed significant improvement, including feeling prepared to teach (P < .0001), having confidence in their teaching ability (P < .0001), being aware of their expectations as a teacher (P < .0001), and feeling that their anxiety about teaching was at a healthy level (P = .0037). There was an increase in the level of enthusiasm, but the P value did not reach a significant range (P = .12). The level of enthusiasm started high and was significantly higher on the pretest than every other tested category (P < .0001). Footnote c to Table 2 should read: P value as calculated using the Mann-Whitney U test [corrected].

Residents are enthusiastic about teaching, and their level of enthusiasm remains high following a teaching rotation. Residents feel more prepared to teach, more confident in their teaching ability, more aware of their expectations as a teacher, and less anxious about teaching following a formal teaching rotation.