What motivates occasional faculty developers to lead faculty development workshops? A qualitative study.

Abstract

The demand for faculty development is ongoing, and many medical schools will need to expand their pool of faculty developers to include physicians and scientists whose primary expertise is not education. Insight into what motivates occasional faculty developers can guide recruitment and retention strategies. This study was designed to understand the motivations of faculty developers who occasionally (one to three times each year) lead faculty development workshops. Qualitative data were collected in March and April 2012 from interviews with faculty developers who occasionally taught workshops from 2007 to 2012 in the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine's faculty development program. The interviews were audiotaped and transcribed. The authors thematically analyzed the transcripts using a general inductive approach and developed codes sensitized by motivation theories. The authors interviewed 29/30 (97%) occasional faculty developers and identified five themes: mastery (desire to learn and develop professionally), relatedness (enjoyment of working with and learning from others), duty (sense of obligation to give back and be a good academic citizen), purpose (commitment to improving local teaching and ultimately patient care), and satisfaction (fun and enjoyment). Four of the themes the authors found are well addressed in motivation theory literature: mastery, relatedness, duty, and purpose. Whereas these four are motivators for occasional faculty developers, it is the fifth theme-satisfaction-that the authors feel is foundational and links the others together. Armed with this understanding, individuals leading faculty development programs can develop strategies to recruit and retain occasional faculty developers.