Faculty development and career success in clinical teaching

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Faculty Development
• Clinical Teaching

Background:

• Clinical teachers' career success is often evaluated by student feedback, teaching awards, and publications.
• Faculty development (FD) programs aim to enhance clinical teachers' (CTs) skills and careers.
• The direct impact of FD on these success indicators requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the effectiveness of overall faculty development (FD) programs.
• To determine the association between FD participation and career success indicators for clinical teachers (CTs).
• To examine the relationship between specific FD areas (e.g., research skills) and CT career outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Quantitative analysis of data from 623 clinical faculty members across 23 departments (2019-2021).
• Utilized Spearman's rank-order correlation and independent-samples t-tests (with Welch's correction).
• Collected data included student feedback, teaching awards, scholarly publications, and FD participation hours.

Main Results:

• Total FD hours correlated positively with student feedback (r_s = 0.15, p = .001) but not teaching awards or publications.
• FD in research skills improved student feedback (Cohen's d = 0.60) and teaching awards (Cohen's d = 0.34), but not publications (Cohen's d = 0.15).
• Teaching awards strongly correlated with positive student feedback (r_s = 0.92-0.93) and publications (r_s = 0.13).

Conclusions:

• FD programs positively influence CTs' student feedback and teaching awards.
• FD does not directly increase scholarly publications.
• Positive student feedback and teaching awards may indirectly enhance publication performance.