Measuring Teaching Efforts in a Medical School Department or Division: A Scoping Review

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Academic Productivity
• Faculty Development

Background:

• Medical schools utilize academic productivity metrics to assess faculty teaching efforts.
• Evaluation systems are designed to track clinical and nonclinical teaching activities.
• There is a need to understand the impact of these metrics on teaching productivity and quality.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of academic productivity metrics on faculty teaching productivity and quality.
• To review existing literature on the measurement of teaching efforts in medical education.

Main Methods:

• A scoping review was conducted using keyword searches across three databases.
• 649 articles were initially identified, with 17 papers meeting the inclusion criteria after screening.
• The review focused on studies reporting on the implementation and outcomes of teaching productivity metrics.

Main Results:

• Institutions measuring only clinical teaching productivity reported 11-20% gains.
• Tracking nonclinical teaching productivity led to increased participation in teaching.
• Monitoring both clinical and nonclinical teaching showed varied positive effects, including increased teaching hours and learner attendance.
• Qualitative measures of teaching quality did not indicate a decrease in quality.

Conclusions:

• Establishing metrics for teaching appears to positively influence the amount of teaching conducted.
• The effect of these metrics on the quality of teaching is less definitive.
• The heterogeneity of reported metrics complicates the generalization of findings regarding their impact.