Measuring outcomes of a one-minute preceptor faculty development workshop

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Measuring outcomes of faculty development programs is difficult and infrequently attempted beyond measuring participant satisfaction with the program. Few studies have validated evaluation tools to assess the effectiveness of faculty development programs, and learners have rarely participated in assessing improvement of faculty who participate in such programs. OBJECTIVE: To develop a questionnaire to measure the effectiveness of an enhanced 1-minute preceptor (OMP) faculty development workshop via faculty self-assessment and resident assessment of faculty, and to use the questionnaire to assess an OMP faculty development workshop. DESIGN AND MEASUREMENTS: We developed and tested a questionnaire to assess the 5 "microskills" of a OMP faculty development program, and performed faculty self-assessment and resident assessment using the questionnaire 6 to 18 months before and 6 to 18 months after our experiential skills improvement workshop. PARTICIPANTS: Sixty-eight internal medicine continuity clinic preceptors (44 control and 24 intervention faculty) at a university, a veteran's affairs hospital, and 2 community internal medicine training sites. RESULTS: Twenty-two participants (92%) completed pre- and postintervention questionnaires. Residents completed 94 preintervention questionnaires and 58 postintervention questionnaires on participant faculty. Faculty reported improvement in behavior following the intervention. Residents reported no significant improvements in faculty teaching behaviors following the intervention. CONCLUSION: We attempted to rigorously evaluate a faculty development program based on the OMP. Although the intervention did not show statistically significant changes in teaching behavior, we believe that this study is an important step in extending assessment of faculty development to include resident evaluation of participating faculty.