The relation between teaching-related self-efficacy and general job-related well-being - a cross-sectional study...

The development of didactic skills plays a relatively subordinate role in medical training. However, teaching makes a central contribution to the training of young physicians and is an important part of the profession. In the present study, we therefore examine the question of how physicians' teaching-related self-efficacy is related to aspects of their general job-related well-being. This construct is measured via the three components job satisfaction, job motivation and emotional exhaustion. From the results, we derive starting points for measures to increase the teaching-related self-efficacy of lecturers and the quality of teaching in clinical settings in the future.

Between 10/2016 and 09/2018, participants in university didactics training courses for medical lecturers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) University Hospital were surveyed in writing. On this basis, we were able to analyze data from 293 participating physicians. We examined the assumed connections between teaching-related self-efficacy and emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and job motivation using Pearson correlations. For the relation to teaching experience, we calculated a Spearman correlation. We examined by t-test a possible difference in teaching-related self-efficacy between physicians who had received didactic training prior to our training vs. those who had not.

The study showed a statistically significant correlation between teaching-related self-efficacy and job satisfaction (r=0.138; p=0.020) as well as with job motivation (r=0.278; p<0.001). There was no statistically significant correlation with emotional exhaustion (r=-0.087; p=0.147) at work. Furthermore, teaching experience correlated positively with teaching-related self-efficacy (ρ=0.186; p=0.002) and physicians rated themselves significantly more self-efficacious in teaching if they had previously completed didactics training (t(282)=2.684, p=0.008).

The teaching-related self-efficacy of physicians teaching at university correlated closely with the aspects of job satisfaction and job motivation, but not with emotional exhaustion. These findings offer starting points for interventional studies to investigate causal relationships that foster approaches to promote physicians' teaching-related self-efficacy.