A teaching encounter card to evaluate clinical supervisors across clerkship rotations

Figures & data

Table

Practice points

Standardized faculty evaluation is an important part of assessing the quality of clinical teaching within a programme. The teaching encounter card presented is a feasible way of collecting faculty evaluations from students, across varying disciplines and learning environments. Encounter cards allow collection of enough data on an individual teacher for a statistically valid evaluation of their teaching abilities. Clinical teachers deserving particular recognition for their excellence with students can be identified through a standardized faculty evaluation process.

Figure 1. Teaching encounter card.

Table 1.  Scores on individual items

	Mean (±SD)	Item to total score correlation coefficient
Enthusiasm for teaching	4.30 (1.47)	0.90
Orientation to teaching session objectives	4.03 (1.25)	0.89
Organization of teaching	4.09 (1.27)	0.91
Friendly learning environment	4.53 (1.30)	0.85
Some pearls of wisdom	4.35 (1.26)	0.90
Assessment of my knowledge	4.05 (1.30)	0.90
Observation of my skills	3.98 (1.34)	0.86
Helpful feedback	4.12(1.33)	0.91
Overall valuable educational experience	4.25 (1.30)	0.93

Table 2.  Encounter card results of global score by learning environment

	Number of cards	Number of faculties evaluated	Mean (±SE)
Ward	1443	375	4.16 (0.03)
Ambulatory care	578	211	4.16 (0.05)
OR*	683	216	4.36 (0.04)
Emergency room	255	124	4.04 (0.07)
Private office	162	67	4.23 (0.09)
Other	128	87	4.17 (0.10)
Total	3249	536	4.20 (0.02)

Note: *p < 0.01.

Table 3.  Encounter card results of global scale by clerkship rotation

Clerkship rotation	Number of cards	Number of faculties	Mean (±SD)
Adult ambulatory	260	63	4.10 (1.24)
Anaesthesia*	442	84	4.58 (1.04)
Internal medicine	636	126	4.22 (1.18)
Obstetrics/Gynaecology	1650	123	4.10 (1.19)
Paediatrics	501	91	4.09 (1.19)
Psychiatry	160	46	4.10 (1.05)
Surgery	322	81	4.26 (1.14)
Total	3971	544	4.19 (1.18)

Note: *p < 0.01.

Table 4.  Comparison of overall score (mean, SE) and nomination for a teaching award by clinical rotation

	Ambulatory N = 198	Anaesthesia N = 288	Internal medicine N = 467	Obstetrics/ Gynaecology N = 1251	Paediatrics N = 386	Psychiatry N = 108	Surgery N = 249	Total N = 2947
Would nominate for a teaching award	5.46 (0.09)	5.36 (0.06)	5.31 (0.06)	5.29 (0.04)	5.16 (0.06)	5.16 (0.13)	5.21 (0.08)	5.29 (0.02)
Would not nominate for a teaching award	3.72 (0.09)	4.17 (0.08)	3.68 (0.06)	3.61(0.04)	3.60 (0.07)	3.89 (0.11)	3.87 (0.09)	3.71 (0.02)
% Nominated	19.2	26.7	27.7	23.4	25.3	20.0	26.1	24.5