Assessing genetic counselors' teaching experience and approaches to teaching in the classroom

While most genetic counselors (GCs) are involved in teaching activities, there is little documentation of how GCs learn to teach and their responsibilities as educators. Past studies have focused on GCs' roles in teaching students in clinical settings as supervisors, but limited literature exists about GCs' roles as educators in classroom settings. This descriptive, exploratory study aimed to describe the current landscape of GCs as teachers in classroom settings and assess GCs' approaches to teaching in the classroom. GCs recruited from the National Society of Genetic Counselors, Maryland and DC Society of Genetic Counselors, and Genetic Counselor Educators Association completed an anonymous online survey that assessed classroom teaching experience, approaches to teaching using the Approaches to Teaching Inventory-Revised (ATI-R), and training resources and methods they have used in the past and would like to use in the future to develop teaching skills. A total of 118 survey responses were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlations, independent samples t-tests, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Participants reported teaching several different student populations, including genetic counseling students, medical students, residents, and fellows. The most common teaching activity GCs reported across all student populations was lecturing in genetics didactic courses. Higher scores on the conceptual change/student-focused scale of the ATI-R represented a more learner-centered approach to teaching and were associated with a greater number of lectures taught (p = 0.028) and percentage of time devoted to teaching (p = 0.042). Participants infrequently had formal, degree-based training in education and commonly reported that they would like to participate in continuing education unit activities and other workshops designed for education to further improve their teaching skills in the future. These findings may be used to inform the development of future training resources for GCs in their roles as classroom educators.