Development of a clinical teaching evaluation and feedback tool for faculty

Abstract

Introduction: Formative evaluations of clinical teaching for emergency medicine (EM) faculty are limited. The goal of this study was to develop a behaviorally-based tool for evaluating and providing feedback to EM faculty based on their clinical teaching skills during a shift. Methods: We used a three-phase structured development process. Phase 1 used the nominal group technique with a group of faculty first and then with residents to generate potential evaluation items. Phase 2 included separate focus groups and used a modified Delphi technique with faculty and residents, as well as a group of experts to evaluate the items generated in Phase 1. Following this, residents classified the items into novice, intermediate, and advanced educator skills. Once items were determined for inclusion and subsequently ranked they were built into the tool by the investigators (Phase 3). Results: The final instrument, the "Faculty Shift Card," is a behaviorally-anchored evaluation and feedback tool used to facilitate feedback to EM faculty about their teaching skills during a shift. The tool has four domains: teaching clinical decision-making; teaching interpersonal skills; teaching procedural skills; and general teaching strategies. Each domain contains novice, intermediate, and advanced sections with 2-5 concrete examples for each level of performance. Conclusion: This structured process resulted in a well-grounded and systematically developed evaluation tool for EM faculty that can provide real-time actionable feedback to faculty and support improved clinical teaching.