Evaluating dental faculty performance. Perceptions of United States and Canadian dental school faculty

In this study, 342 full-time dental faculty in 67 United States and Canadian Dental Schools ranked, in decreasing order of importance, 12 performance criteria and then ranked the same 12 criteria as they perceived those who evaluate faculty (chairpersons/administration) would rank them. Agreement between faculty's global ranking gave a positive rho of .74. Ranking agreement in 9 of 11 clinical departments were significant and ranged from .58 to .86. Although the global ranking was significant, an important discrepancy in rank-order was noted. Faculty perceived that those who evaluate performance would rank the number of publications number one while faculty ranked classroom, clinical and laboratory teaching number one and the number of publications number six. Implications of the discrepancy between the perceived importance of research productivity and teaching in faculty evaluation were discussed with respect to the increasing emphasis placed on research for dental faculty within the university.