A Review of Performance Evaluation Paradigms Involving Practice Faculty

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Education
• Faculty Development
• Academic Administration

Background:

• Practice faculty are vital for training future pharmacists.
• Current evaluation systems for practice faculty are often ill-defined and inconsistent.
• Existing performance evaluations frequently misalign with faculty responsibilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and summarize literature on practice faculty evaluations.
• To provide recommendations for creating equitable evaluation systems.
• To ensure diverse contributions across practice, teaching, research, and service are valued.

Main Methods:

• Literature review and synthesis.
• Analysis of existing evaluation practices in pharmacy schools.
• Identification of common challenges and best practices.

Main Results:

• Practice contributions are evaluated inconsistently; only half of pharmacy schools have written policies.
• Teaching evaluations primarily focus on didactic instruction.
• Research evaluations are misaligned with job descriptions and overemphasize grants and publications.
• Service contributions are often overlooked and difficult to measure.
• Dissatisfaction with evaluations impacts productivity, retention, and burnout.

Conclusions:

• Vague and inconsistent performance evaluation criteria for practice faculty create unclear expectations.
• Job dissatisfaction and turnover are significant consequences of current evaluation systems.
• Addressing these long-standing challenges is essential for the pharmacy academy.