Comprehensive Faculty Development Research Articles

A systematic review of faculty development programs based on the Harden teacher’s role framework model

BackgroundDespite the changing roles of faculty in the health professions over the past two decades, none of the reviews has been paid enough attention to the impact of the faculty development programs on these roles. The objective of this review is to synthesize the existing evidence that addresses the questions: “What are the types and outcomes of faculty development programs based on the Harden teachers’ role framework and which of the areas described by Harden and Crosby are the authors referring to?”MethodsThis review was conducted according to the guidance for Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework. In 2020, a literature search was conducted in MEDLINE/PubMed, Scopus, ERIC, ScienceDirect, Google Scholar, Magiran and SID databases. The review included 119 studies (between 1990 and 2020) that met the review criteria. Data were extracted using a modified coding sheet. We used the modified Kirkpatrick model to assess the educational outcomes of faculty development programs.ResultsThe majority of faculty development programs were workshops (33.61%) with various durations. Most programs focused on the domain of information provider and coach (76.47%), followed by the facilitator of learning and mentor (53.78%) and assessor and diagnostician (37.81%). Only five faculty development programs focused on the domain of role model. The majority (83.19%) of outcomes reported were at level 2B, level 1 (73.95%) and level 2A (71.42%). Gains in knowledge and skills related to teaching methods and student assessment were frequently noted. Behavior changes included enhanced teaching performance, development of new educational curricula and programs, improved feedback and evaluation processes, new leadership positions, increased academic output and career development. The impact on the organizational practice continued to be underexplored.ConclusionBased on the review findings, broadening the scope of faculty development programs beyond the traditional roles of the faculty members by utilizing a competency-based framework for developing a comprehensive faculty development program is recommended. Attention to individualized form of faculty development programs and incorporating more informal approaches into the design and delivery of faculty development programs is also needed.

A Scoping Review of Educator Proficiency Interventions in Pharmacy Education Illustrated by an Interdisciplinary Model Integrating Pedagogical Theories into Practice.

Pharmacy schools recognize the need for flexibility and comprehensive curricular transformation with a competency-based focus to effectively prepare for the evolving practitioner competencies and challenges of the pharmacy profession. The curricular implementation of evidence-based teaching and learning theories and practices demands educator proficiency through skills development with indispensable faculty leadership support. Our scoping review of online databases and pharmacy education-related journals aims to identify faculty development interventions or teaching proficiency programs that integrate educational and pedagogical theories. Original studies and reviews published between 2010 and 2022 were screened based on four inclusion criteria. Thirty-four manuscripts were eligible for full-text analysis, of which seven results referenced target faculty pedagogy knowledge development. Nine key messages, as Results Statements, synthesize and provide a framework for our results analysis. An ongoing Hungarian intervention model of comprehensive faculty development with strong interdisciplinary cooperation is discussed in our study to illustrate the applicability of the Results Statements through each stage of the process. Educator motivation and relatedness to students or awareness of the educator roles are intrinsic factors, which may not be easily detectable yet significantly impact teaching proficiency and student learning outcomes. The integration of evidence-based pedagogical knowledge and training in educator proficiency development contributes to the sustainability and cost-effectiveness of faculty interventions.

Using Q Methodology to Understand Faculty Development Needs to Prepare for Next Generation NCLEX.

Using Q Methodology to Understand Faculty Development Needs to Prepare for Next Generation NCLEX.

Implementing Faculty Development Programs in Medical Education Utilizing Kirkpatrick's Model.

Since the 1970s, the definition of faculty development has evolved from improving teaching skills and classroom performance to a full range of activities involving teaching, leadership, mentorship of students, and impacting institutional culture. Unfortunately, in many educational programs, the focus of faculty development is still on classroom performance and research activities. This is troubling given the increased competitive nature of higher education in general, and even medical education, to attract the best students. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the Kirkpatrick model can be used as a framework for the development, implementation, and management of a comprehensive faculty development program. An important gap exists within the academic literature regarding a lack of discussion and analysis about how faculty development can be implemented in a way that helps healthcare faculty improve their skills in all areas of academic performance. At the same time, there is a lack of discussion and analysis about the need for medical schools to align faculty development with larger institutional goals and outcomes. The discussion included in this article serves to begin the process of filling that gap within the academic literature by demonstrating that the Kirkpatrick model can be used to implement and manage faculty development programs in which there is an institutional focus rather than an individual focus. By focusing on faculty development that is aligned with larger institutional goals, medical schools can be more competitive and better serve the future healthcare professionals they are training.

Exploring the Factors that Influence Ethical Spanish Use among Medical Students and Solutions for Improvement

Issue There is a need for greater access to Spanish language services in United States healthcare. One approach to increasing language concordant care is the use of second language skills by healthcare staff. The desire to use second language skills may have unintended consequences when individuals step beyond their language abilities and can cause more harm than do good for limited-English proficiency patients. Medical students are in a unique position that places them at increased risk for inappropriately using second language skills. Evidence: The use of qualified healthcare interpreters has been shown to mitigate some of the disparities seen with limited-English proficiency patients including poorer healthcare outcomes, less access to care, and lower patient satisfaction. In spite of this knowledge, studies have demonstrated the phenomenon of residents and physicians “getting by” without the use of an interpreter, even when they recognized that their language competency was insufficient to provide high quality care. Regardless of language ability, medical students are asked to engage in conversations with Spanish speaking patients that are beyond their level of language competency. Students vary in their perceived language ability and level of comfort engaging in different clinical scenarios with limited-English proficiency patients. Implications: Students are in a unique position of vulnerability to pressures to use second language skills in situations that step beyond their abilities. We explore how hierarchy intensifies previously established factors, including a lack of adequate training or evaluation and other structural barriers, in contributing to medical students’ inappropriate use of Spanish with limited-English proficiency patients. We propose an approach that includes student education, standardization of clinic rules regarding interpretation, and comprehensive faculty development to address this important patient care issue.

Kirkpatrick's Approach to Build Faculty Development Programs in Medical Education

This article demonstrates how to create, manage, and administer a comprehensive faculty development programme utilising the Kirkpatrick model. The academic literature lacks discussion and analysis of how faculty development might improve healthcare faculty in all academic domains. This study shows that the Kirkpatrick model may be used to create and manage institutional faculty development programmes, filling a gap in the academic literature. If medical schools priorities staff development in line with their mission, they can become more competitive and serve their students better. Healthcare students will benefit from this. Place of Study: Rai Medical College Sargodha Study Duration: June 2021 to February 2022 Study Design: Empirical research Conclusion: This article suggests that faculty development should be done methodically and to fit the needs of various faculty groups. It also suggests that the educators' ultimate purpose is to train medical business executives who can handle the challenges of modern medicine on their own. Medical education programmes must adapt to changing stakeholder needs, focusing on outcomes rather than instruction. Keywords: Faculty Development Program, Medical Education, Kirkpatrick’s Model, Teaching Performance, Effectiveness

Key Components of a Robust Faculty Development Program: An Emphasis on Contemporary Programming Events

A strong faculty development program is crucial to recruit, support, and advance early-career faculty members in order to achieve and sustain an exceptional and diverse medical community. There has been increasing appreciation for the importance of fostering intrapersonal "soft-skills" such as leadership, mentorship, resilience, adaptability, and emotional intelligence. These skills allow an individual to better interact with others and their environment, and can facilitate teamwork, time management, decision-making, and conflict resolution. The development of these skills is an ongoing process that is cumulative in nature, and generalizable to any career phase or field of medicine. A comprehensive faculty development program must emphasize these contemporary notions alongside the traditional curriculum, and this includes individual, departmental, institutional, and national level considerations.

Twelve tips for promoting consistent, good quality medical education across diverse clinical settings through faculty development approaches

When students attend clinical attachments in diverse locations, a key challenge is in ensuring consistently good teaching over all areas. To meet this challenge, a faculty development intervention called TiMEtoTeach was created with the aim of reaching all involved in teaching medical students. The programme takes a holistic view of workplace (professional clinical attachments) learning with the recognition of all who are part of the student learning journey, including staff in clinical environments, charitable organisations, fellow students and the patients and carers. Empowering and upskilling this diverse group, we create a Universal Faculty. We engage this group with a comprehensive and accessible faculty development programme, enabling a consistent, authentic, and realistic learning experience for students. This supports graduate preparedness for their roles as junior doctors. The twelve tips described in this article relate to simple, achievable processes that faculty developers within medical education can apply to help improve consistency and quality in clinical workplace experience for students, recognising the challenges of engaging the large and diverse group of people who support education within the clinical arena.

Review of an Intensive Faculty Development Program Conducted at a Regional Medical Campus.

Purpose: The process of attracting, training, and retaining adjunct clinical faculty can be a challenge for regional medical campuses. It is important to have a faculty development program that addresses the specific needs of community-based faculty members. However, there is a shortage of literature on how to best develop and deliver such programs at regional campuses. Objective: to describe the development and implementation of a comprehensive faculty development program at a regional medical campus.
 Method: An intensive faculty development program was developed at the regional medical campus of a large US Midwestern medical school. The faculty development program was directed by a senior faculty member at the regional medical campus working with a senior educator from the medical education office on the main campus. The program expanded the number of yearly faculty development workshops offered to all faculty at the regional campus and specifically included an intensive two-year program for 12 faculty teaching scholars. The two-year Teaching Scholars program entailed additional meeting sessions along with assignments, readings, and the scholars’ commitment to incorporate session content into practice. Results: Teaching scholars maintained regular session attendance. Self-assessed knowledge and skills in completing common teaching activities improved for participating faculty across the study period. All participating faculty rated the program good (18%) to excellent (82%) and all indicated they would recommend the program to colleagues.
 Conclusions: The described program can be accomplished by any regional medical campus working with faculty experts at the main campus. The financial costs of the program were minimal, and data from the program supported its benefits.

The essentials of a faculty development program in the setting of a new medical school

Health sciences centers rely on competent and engaged faculty for their success, and therefore a robust faculty development program is a must for every academic institution. We report on the...

Factors to be considered in designing a faculty development program for medical education: local experience from the Western region of Saudi Arabia.

BackgroundAmong the different aims of medical education, the provision of society with skilled, professional, and knowledgeable healthcare workers who maintain and develop their expertise over a lifetime career is important. The achievement of this goal is linked with the professional development of both faculty members and healthcare workers. This study aims to measure the perception of faculty members regarding their views about the goals of faculty development programs, practices and activities, and factors that determine their achievement.MethodsA cross-sectional survey was conducted in multiple universities in the Western region of Saudi Arabia. The participants were given a pre-designed self-administered questionnaire generated from literature. The survey questionnaire consisted of three sections that were designed to assess the faculty members’ perception on the faculty development program.ResultsA total of 210 faculty members participated in the study. The most important perceived goal was to motivate teachers to become better teachers. The most important perceived practice was establishing a positive climate for teaching and learning. The most important perceived factor was skilled and dedicated staff support.ConclusionThe results of this study demonstrate that faculty members have positive perceptions regarding all aspects of faculty development programs. This study will raise awareness regarding the importance of faculty development programs in sustaining educational vitality. We recommend the implementation and maintenance of comprehensive faculty development programs in Saudi universities.

Faculty development needs assessment for online teaching

Background: Academic staff members, who are responsible for teaching and training, should be aware of the principle of online course design, development, and implementation. The aim of this study is to evaluate instructors’ skills and needs for conducting distance learning healthcare courses, including the level of assistance they need to implement and use online and software tools in online courses.Methods: The current study applied online faculty survey used by the Center for Teaching Excellence, University of South Carolina to assess the faculty’s instructional technology needs for training and support. The survey asked faculty staff about a broad number of classroom and online technologies, with a helpful response scale that reveals not only what the faculty is already using, but also what the instructors want to use and what they need help with.Results: The results of this study revealed a significant need of faculty staff members for the training and development of their skills in almost all tools used for conducting online courses. The female responder was higher than males. Regarding the use of software, although the majority of participating staff members in this study use almost all software tools required for conducting online healthcare courses, they expressed a need for help in developing new ideas to use the software effectively.Conclusions: From this study, it could be concluded that it is essential to organize comprehensive faculty development training courses for staff members to help them in conducting their online courses or converting their face-to-face courses to blended courses effectively.

FACULTY DEVELOPMENT FOR ONLINE LEARNING USING A COGNITIVE APPRENTICESHIP MODEL

This study examined the experiences and perceptions of a group of sixteen faculty members who participated in a comprehensive faculty development process for online teaching and learning developed using a cognitive apprenticeship theoretical framework and implemented at the outset of a new online graduate certificate program. The study documented faculty membersʼ self-reported levels of: professional development; changes in instructional approaches; student learning and competency attainment, and impressions of the overall translation of teaching expertise from classroom to the online format. Faculty data regarding their experiences in the program were captured using a 26-question web-based instrument. Data were analyzed using a combination of descriptive statistics and a two-phase qualitative process involving cluster and thematic analysis.

The Outcomes of Chinese Visiting Scholars’ Experiences at Canadian Universities: Implications for Faculty Development at Chinese Universities

This article examines the outcomes of the overseas experiences of Chinese visiting scholars and the implications of visiting scholar programs for faculty development at Chinese universities. On the basis of semi-structured interviews with 17 returned Chinese visiting scholars who spent six to 12 months in a faculty of education at one of five Canadian universities, the following significant aspects of their experiences and related outcomes were highlighted: The cycle of overseas experiences and associated outcomes of Chinese visiting scholars, factors influencing the outcomes of their overseas experiences, visiting scholar programs as a type of faculty development, and China-Canada academic collaboration through visiting scholar programs. The findings support the literature-based conceptual model for investigating the experiences and outcomes of visiting scholars. In the new era of sending university faculty abroad, we suggest that visiting scholar programs should be treated as an important approach to professional development for faculty and be incorporated into a comprehensive faculty development package for Chinese university faculty.

Preparing teachers for competency-based medical education: Fundamental teaching activities

Introduction: The move to competency-based medical education has created new challenges for medical teachers, including the need to reflect on and further develop their own competencies as teachers. Guidance is needed to ensure comprehensive and coherent programs of faculty development to meet the needs of teachers.Methods: The Working Group on Faculty Development of the College of Family Physicians of Canada developed a new concept, Fundamental Teaching Activities (FTAs), to describe the day-to-day work of teachers. These activities are intended to guide teacher professional development. Using task analysis and iterative reviews with teachers and educational leaders, these FTAs were organized into a framework for teachers to identify the actions involved in various teaching tasks, and to reflect on their teaching performance and next steps in personal development.Results: In addition to use by teachers for personal development, the framework is being employed to guide the development of comprehensive faculty development offerings and curriculum, and to organize the beginnings of a national repository of teaching tools.Conclusions: Designed to support and aid teachers and those charged with faculty development, the Fundamental Teaching Activities Framework holds promise for all teachers in health sciences education.

An Innovative, Comprehensive Faculty Recruitment and Development Program at One U.S. Dental School: Early Results.

Dental faculty recruitment and development are critical to replenish and cultivate sufficient and adequately prepared educators to educate future generations of dentists. At Rutgers School of Dental Medicine, the From Practice to Preceptor (FP2P) program, now in the last of its five years of funding from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), has an overall aim of recruiting, training, and retaining a diverse and well-prepared dental faculty workforce. The FP2P program introduced novel methods for recruiting and preparing new faculty members since its goal is to help participants transition from being practicing dentists to becoming part- or full-time faculty members. The recruitment and selection process has emphasized reaching community practitioners in general or pediatric dentistry, individuals from underrepresented groups, and those with a passion for teaching. The two-year program with weekly meetings was designed to develop participants' skills to meet the teaching, clinical, and administrative roles of dental faculty. The aims of this study were to determine if the program recruitment methods used would result in participants who were more ethnically and racially diverse than the school's current faculty and to determine if, after training, participants perceived they had increased knowledge, skills, and abilities in specified areas as compared to before training. Participants completed pre- and post-program surveys assessing their perceived level of preparedness in critical competencies for dental faculty. Surveys were completed by 94% of participants in cohorts one through four; 75% (n=15) of cohorts two and three completed both the pre- and post-program surveys, which were used for this analysis. Over 30% of the 35 participants to date were from an underrepresented group. Survey results suggest the participants increased their perceived preparedness in administrative, clinical, and educational competencies. Follow-up is needed to ascertain how many go on to become dental educators and whether they are better prepared to succeed as new faculty compared to nonparticipants.

Effective Faculty Development in an Institutional Context: Designing for Transfer.

A key challenge for faculty development is ensuring that learning is transferred to the workplace. An effective program fosters the development of a particular blend of knowledge, dispositions, and behaviors that are applied and sustained over time. The role of expert clinician aside, faculty in academic institutions may not be formally prepared for the evolving range of roles and tasks they are asked to fulfill. Designing an effective faculty development program poses formidable challenges. While the literature offers ample guidance on designing faculty development episodes, perspectives on organized and comprehensive faculty development programs based on the principles of transfer of training are lacking. In this perspective, we highlight 11 key considerations for effective faculty development in an institutional context (TABLE). Our aim is to guide individuals responsible for designing and implementing a development program with the goal of enhancing the transfer of learning into workplace practice.

To be or not to be a facilitator of reflective learning for medical students? a case study of medical teachers' perceptions of introducing a reflective writing exercise to an undergraduate curriculum.

BackgroundIntroducing reflective writing to a medical curriculum requires the acceptance and participation of teachers. The purpose of this study was to explore medical teachers’ views on the benefits of introducing a reflective writing exercise into an undergraduate medical curriculum, including their levels of satisfaction and their concerns. We also investigated effects on the teachers’ personal and professional development arising from their roles as novice facilitators.MethodsA qualitative approach was employed using semi-structured interviews. During an attachment to Primary Care Medicine course, fourth-year medical students (n = 180) in the Faculty of Medicine, Ramathibodi Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand were assigned to write a reflective essay titled, “A Significant Event in My First Clinical Year”. After reading the essays and facilitating between one to three small group discussions based on these, each of the 18 teachers enrolled in our study completed an in-depth face to face interview. Transcripts of these were studied, using thematic content analysis to identify emerging themes.ResultsThe novice facilitators felt that facilitated reflection was both valuable and appropriate for students. They also perceived that it had a positive impact on their own personal and professional lives. In the early phase of implementing this activity, teachers expressed concerns about 1) their ability and confidence as facilitators in small group discussion 2) their ability to deal with emotions raised within their groups 3) the effectiveness of the activity 4) poor presentation and possible fabrication of student work.ConclusionsMost teachers regarded this activity as being beneficial to them, to student learning, and to the curriculum. Their insights, including concerns about the level of skill needed for facilitation, provide valuable material for planning a comprehensive faculty development programme.

Systems Alignment for Comprehensive Faculty Development in Liberal Arts Colleges

Using an alignment framework, the authors explore faculty development initiatives in liberal arts colleges in order to understand the connection between organizational priorities and processes as connected to faculty members’ stated needs. The study draws on mixed-methods data from The Initiative for Faculty Development in Liberal Arts Colleges (IFDLAC), including survey and interview data from the 13 member institutions of the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA).The authors offer future implications for faculty development practice.

Systems Alignment for Comprehensive Faculty Development in Liberal Arts Colleges

Systems Alignment for Comprehensive Faculty Development in Liberal Arts Colleges