Evaluation of clinical teaching in general practice using the Maastricht Clinical Teaching Questionnaire

Dear Sir

We report our use of the Maastricht Clinical Teaching Questionnaire (MCTQ) (Stalmeijer et al. 2010) in Irish general practice, supporting its use in a different clinical context and country.

We evaluated clinical teaching by general practitioners (GPs) with year 2 undergraduate medical students. Students (n = 107) were invited to evaluate their clinical teacher by completing the MCTQ and making qualitative suggestions for improvement. GPs (n = 10) were asked to self-rate their teaching before and after a faculty development workshop. At the end of the academic year, 82 students (76.7% response rate; 55% female) submitted ratings on 10 teachers; eight teachers were evaluated by 10 or more students. Students rated their GP teachers highly, with a mean item score of 4.5 (out of 5) and a global rating of 8.8 (out of 10). GPs rated their own teaching lower with a mean item score of 3.1 and a global rating of 6.7.

The internal reliability of the scale was high with an alpha co-efficient of 0.91. Our subscale reliability ranged from 0.63 to 0.84. Domains of modelling (0.84) and learning environment (0.82) were kept with those reported (Stalmeijer et al. 2010). Domains of coaching and articulation were 0.63, lower than those reported in studies of hospital doctors (Stalmeijer et al. 2010) or veterinary clinical teachers (Boerboom et al. 2012).

Students and teachers identified similar strengths and weaknesses in teacher performance. Teachers rated their interest in students as their highest strength and felt they provided a safe learning environment. This was supported by students’ comments on the friendliness and approachability of teachers. Teachers recognised the need to help students define their learning objectives (exploration domain). More feedback was the most frequent suggestion from students to improve placements. GPs also identified this deficit (coaching domain).

The use of the MCTQ and its basis in the apprenticeship theory was helpful in allowing us to identify areas of strengths and weaknesses of specific aspects of teaching. As far as we know, this is the first report on the use of the MCTQ outside the Netherlands and in a general practice setting.