Exploring community faculty members' engagement in educational scholarship

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Faculty Development
• Educational Scholarship

Background:

• Community faculty are crucial for medical education.
• Understanding their perceptions of educational scholarship is vital for engagement.
• Current engagement strategies may not align with community faculty identity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore community faculty members' perceptions of educational scholarship.
• To identify barriers and facilitators to their engagement in scholarly activities.

Main Methods:

• Conducted semistructured interviews with 8 physician faculty members at the University of Toronto.
• Utilized a grounded theory approach with constant comparative analysis of verbatim transcripts.

Main Results:

• Participants identified as clinicians and teachers, not scholars.
• They perceived educational scholarship as disconnected from teaching or patient care improvement.
• Scholarly activity was viewed as a path for career advancement, often equated with clinical research.

Conclusions:

• Faculty professional identity and implicit models of scholarship influence engagement.
• Expanding the definition of educational scholarship beyond research is necessary.
• Supporting, recognizing, and valuing diverse scholarly contributions can foster engagement.