Developing a self-assessment tool for dental faculty to map professional growth

Although self-assessment is a lifelong skill practiced in predoctoral training, the utility of this mechanism is seldom linked to competencies that encompass the broad range of skill sets and roles of an academic dentist. Literature defining faculty competencies and/or roles in medical and dental education is limited in scope focusing primarily on teaching and research. Identifying the broad spectrum of dental faculty skill sets and connecting them to self-assessment and professional development needs to be explored. Furthermore, a mechanism that can serve as a professional roadmap with identified areas to develop and catapult faculty into a self-reflection growth process is lacking in dental academia. The purpose of this study was to define the broad spectrum of competencies, or skill sets of an academic dentist and develop a faculty self-assessment tool grounded in self-regulation theory to help faculty track and plan professional growth. A mixed-methods approach including a faculty focus group was used to refine and verify the relevance of pre-defined faculty roles and skill sets. A self-assessment instrument was then developed with 31 broad skills and two scales that ascertained faculty interest in developing and development stage for each skill set. The intended utility of the self-assessment tool is to provide an introspective mechanism to obtain specific information about a wide range of faculty professional growth areas beyond teaching and research. The instrument can also be used to facilitate mentoring and may have implications for determining faculty development programming.