Experiences of medical teachers about methods, types and barriers of giving feedback

Abstract

Background: The aims of the research that formed the basis of the current study are as follows: Determining methods that are used by teachers for giving feedback in clinical settings. Determining types of feedback, teachers give to their students in clinical settings. Determining barriers of giving feedback and its important teachers’ experience in clinical settings. Methods: This applied research was a cross-sectional study that involved 131 medical clinical teachers. Using resources in the library and on the web, we developed a questionnaire comprising two parts: the first part of the questionnaire focused on assessing the methods and types of giving feedback used by the participants (a total of 25 items); the second part focused on determining barriers that teachers experience when giving feedback in clinical setting (8 items). Responses to each question were on a Likert Scale. The validity of the questionnaire was determined using content validity index (CVI) measures, and was confirmed by 10 experts. Reliability was evaluated with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Results: Most of the teachers (57.49%) in this study reported giving oral feedback to students, 39.1% reported giving nonverbal feedback and a few of them (3.41%) gave written feedback. Participants allowed to nominate more than one type of feedback. Teachers reported many barriers to giving feedback to students, including lack of knowledge and skill about giving feedback, large numbers of students, lack of time, and fear of students’ negative reaction to feedback. Also, concern about negatively impacting the relationship between students and teachers, and students feeling humiliated were considered moderately important. Conclusions: In general results show that there is considerable capacity to improve the quality and extent of feedback given to health sciences students in clinical settings.