Interactive Teaching Practices Among Trained and Untrained Medical Educators: A Cross-Sectional Analysis

Competency-based medical curricula necessitate medical educators to incorporate interactive learning during lecture sessions. However, there is a lack of evidence on the impact of faculty training programs on educators' interactive teaching practices. Hence, this study compared the practices and beliefs of medical educators who had attended short-term and long-term educational training programs with those of educators who had not.

This questionnaire-based cross-sectional study was conducted among Phase 1 (pre-clinical) and Phase 2 (para-clinical) medical educators from multiple institutions. Data on educators' medical education training, perceived use of interactive teaching, preferred methods, difficulty levels of varied teaching strategies, perceived reasons for implementation, and challenges faced when implementing interactive teaching methods in lectures were collected. A total of 229 Phase 1 and Phase 2 medical teachers completed the survey, and their responses were analyzed.

Educators who had participated in short-term and long-term medical education training programs have reported more frequent use of interactive teaching techniques compared to those who had not. Nonetheless, except for a few cases, the two groups were similar in their preferred interactive teaching methods, preferred methods for promoting higher-order thinking, difficulty levels of strategies, and perceived reasons for and barriers to implementation.

While educators who do not attend faculty development programs have similar perceptions of interactive teaching compared to those who attend training programs, engaging in training programs significantly increases the likelihood that an educator will utilize interactive teaching techniques in the classroom. This could be a multifactorial phenomenon or a reflection of the inherent nature of interactive teaching practice.