Clinical teaching performance improvement of faculty in residency training: A prospective cohort study

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to investigate how aspects of a teaching performance evaluation system may affect faculty’s teaching performance improvement as perceived by residents over time.

Methods: Prospective multicenter cohort study conducted in The Netherlands between 1 September 2008 and 1 February 2013. Nine hundred and one residents and 1068 faculty of 65 teaching programs in 16 hospitals were invited to annually (self-) evaluate teaching performance using the validated, specialty-specific System for Evaluation of Teaching Qualities (SETQ). We used multivariable adjusted generalized estimating equations to analyze the effects of (i) residents’ numerical feedback, (ii) narrative feedback, and (iii) faculty’s participation in self-evaluation on residents’ perception of faculty’s teaching performance improvement.

Results: The average response rate over three years was 69% for faculty and 81% for residents. Higher numerical feedback scores were associated with residents rating faculty as having improved their teaching performance one year following the first measurement (regression coefficient, b: 0.077; 95% CI: 0.002–0.151; p = 0.045), but not after the second wave of receiving feedback and evaluating improvement. Receiving more suggestions for improvement was associated with improved teaching performance in subsequent years.

Conclusions: Evaluation systems on clinical teaching performance appear helpful in enhancing teaching performance in residency training programs. High performing teachers also appear to improve in the perception of the residents.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all faculty and residents who generously participated in our study. We also thank Medox.nl for developing and maintaining the web application and the Heusdencrew for their splendid social support while working on this paper.

Declaration of interest: This study is part of the research project “Quality of clinical teachers and residency training programs” which is co-financed by the Dutch Ministry of Health, the Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, and the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences of the University of Maastricht. Prof. Onyebuchi A. Arah was supported by Veni career grant number 916.96.059 awarded by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The funders had no role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis and interpretation of the data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; and decision to submit the manuscript for publication. R. M. van der Leeuw and B. C. M. Boerebach had full access to all the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis. Under embargo, this paper is included as a chapter in the thesis of R. M. van der Leeuw and B. C. M. Boerebach.