Scale development for competencies among medical teachers on undergraduate education: A Delphi study from a top Chinese university

ABSTRACT

Competency among medical teachers on undergraduate education is essential to meet the growing needs of medical education, but less is known about what competencies the medical teachers need. The aim of this study was to develop a scale to describe teaching competencies for medical teachers in China. The Delphi method was used to select competency items, and the Precedence Chart was used to determine the weight of each item. We enrolled 39 experts from a top Chinese medical university, and three rounds of ratings were conducted before reaching consensus. The developed 36-item competency scale consisted of four themes that were regarded as essential, including teaching attitude (nine items), teaching process (18 items), teaching effectiveness (five items), and teaching-related research (four items). The experts rated more than four (out of five) in terms of the scale’s comprehensiveness, scientific rigour, and feasibility. The scale has great potential to guide faculty development.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical teacher
• competency on undergraduate education
• Delphi study
• China
• scale development

Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge the 39 experts for their time and efforts in this study. We would like to acknowledge Ms Tonya G. Mason from the University of Hong Kong for editing the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics approval

The study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Peking University Health Science Center. Each participant was adequately informed of the aims and methods of the study, and an informed consent was obtained before their participation. No identifiable information was released in the summary report to maintain the anonymity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wangnan Cao

Wangnan Cao , PhD is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Health and Healthy Ageing Group, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Hong Kong. Her research interests are faculty development and need assessment among medical teachers. She has been involved in several research projects, such as the project to investigate training gaps in interdisciplinary sciences among medical students.

Jingyi Cai

Jingyi Cai , MMed is a Director in Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Office of Medical Education, Peking University Health Science Center. She has been engaged in medical education management for more than 20 years. She has participated in a number of medical education research projects; topics included student self-assessment, education evaluation and the accreditation of medical education, She has worked on faculty development for over six years and organized more than 100 training seminars and workshops for medical faculties.

Chun Chang

Chun Chang , PhD is a Professor and Deputy Director in Department of Social Medicine and Health Education, School of Public Health, Peking University. She is a well-known expert in behavioural health and health promotion, and she also serves as the mentor on medical education projects. She is the Principal investigator of about 20 research projects supported by local grants and oversea agencies (i.e., WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA) and has published more than 170 papers.