Identification of capacity development indicators for faculty development programs: A nominal group technique study

Medium-term outcomes of a program to upgrade the nursing faculty in Cambodia: A qualitative study

Continuous professional development is important for improving professional competencies, such as cognitive knowledge, technical skills, behaviors, and attitudes. Trainees who complete training programs can have a positive influence on their workplaces. However, it is challenging to establish a process that can facilitate individual learning and help achieve training outcomes in educational and clinical workplaces. In Cambodia, a tumultuous history has played a part in the deficit of adequately prepared nursing faculty. Since the faculty development is vital to ensuring the quality of education, the application of upgraded nursing programs has started in 2011. After the completion of upgraded program, an immediate post-training study was conducted in 2014. Results showed that some faculty members did not accept trainees because they lacked an understanding about nursing concepts. The current study aimed to evaluate the medium-term outcomes of an established program that can improve nursing education and to identify relevant factors in light of the institutional development of educational and clinical facilities in Cambodia. A qualitative study incorporating focus group discussions, key-informant interviews, and teaching document reviews was performed with a thematic analysis using the four-level training evaluation model of Kirkpatrick. Finally, factors influencing outcomes were assessed based on the Bronfenbrenner's ecological system theory. Five themes for behavior and three themes for results were identified as medium-term outcomes from an institutional development aspect. The major enabling factors for the above-mentioned themes were the support of institutional managers, continuous networking among trainees, and supportive national policy. Compared with the immediate post-training study findings, the perceived medium-term outcomes became more strategically focused. Then, the impact of training at a considerably broader scale within the workplace was discussed. The findings highlighted the importance of medium-term program delivery and monitoring if one understands the role played in stimulating outcomes. Moreover, the importance of contextual factors including the influence of managers and policy environment were emphasized.

Implementing Faculty Development Programs in Medical Education Utilizing Kirkpatrick's Model

Since the 1970s, the definition of faculty development has evolved from improving teaching skills and classroom performance to a full range of activities involving teaching, leadership, mentorship of students, and impacting institutional culture. Unfortunately, in many educational programs, the focus of faculty development is still on classroom performance and research activities. This is troubling given the increased competitive nature of higher education in general, and even medical education, to attract the best students. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the Kirkpatrick model can be used as a framework for the development, implementation, and management of a comprehensive faculty development program. An important gap exists within the academic literature regarding a lack of discussion and analysis about how faculty development can be implemented in a way that helps healthcare faculty improve their skills in all areas of academic performance. At the same time, there is a lack of discussion and analysis about the need for medical schools to align faculty development with larger institutional goals and outcomes. The discussion included in this article serves to begin the process of filling that gap within the academic literature by demonstrating that the Kirkpatrick model can be used to implement and manage faculty development programs in which there is an institutional focus rather than an individual focus. By focusing on faculty development that is aligned with larger institutional goals, medical schools can be more competitive and better serve the future healthcare professionals they are training.

Faculty Development in the COVID-19 Era: A Rapid Systematic Review

Background: The coronavirus-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a worldwide evolving situation that has resulted in rapid adaptations of faculty development interventions in medical education. The present rapid systematic review aims to provide a narrative synthesis of the evidence concerning focus, intervention type, instructional methods, duration, and the evaluations results of the faculty development interventions in the medical education area in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: This was a systematic study conducted on 5 databases (Medline/PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, ERIC, and Scopus) from December 2019 to November 2021. We used specific keywords such as faculty development, COVID-19, and medical education on electronic databases. To find additional relevant studies, we conducted a forward and backward searching strategy by checking the reference lists and citations of the included articles. Studies reporting the educational faculty development interventions in medical education during the COVID-19 era and those articles published in English were included. Titles, abstracts, and full texts were screened and the data were extracted by 2 authors. Results: Ten articles were included, most of which were focused on the improvement of online teaching and learning skills. The findings are organized into 2 main categories, including a description of the interventions, and the special aspects of the studies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: This review explores the evidence concerning faculty development programs in the medical education area in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These interventions may develop individual abilities and organizational capacities of health professions educators to enable them to sustain academic vitality and cope with the pandemic crisis. Also a rapid movement to online faculty developments, which will likely continue after the pandemic, was argued and it is required to direct the adaptations and innovations of educational developments to an organized structure in the future.

Challenges and solutions for the promotion of medical sciences faculty members in Iran: a systematic review

INTRODUCTION

The faculty promotion system is expected to benefit the faculty, institute, and profession and lead to the sustainable and comprehensive development. This present systematic review aims to investigate the challenges and solutions for the promotion of medical sciences faculty members in Iran.

METHOD

This study was a systematic review conducted by searching in PubMed, Scopus, Eric, Web of Science, Cochrane, SID, Magiran, and https://irandoc.ac.ir/line with Persian and English terms in the period from 2015 to 2020. Study selection and data extraction were performed independently by reviewers.

RESULTS

Thirteen articles were included. Challenges and solutions for the promotion of medical sciences faculty members were reviewed and grouped into five main categories: 1. The general regulations for the promotion of faculty members, 2. Cultural, disciplinary, and social activities, 3. Educational activities, 4. Research-technology activities, and 5. Scientific-executive activities.

CONCLUSION

Despite several modifications to regulations for the promotion of medical sciences faculty members in Iran, this process still encounters challenges because of its complex nature. This article provides tips to policymakers on regulations of promotion for educational activities.

Factors determining development of researchers within a research network on cancer diagnosis in primary care (CanTest): an interview study

OBJECTIVES

Developing connections with other researchers in a network, learning informally through these connections and using them to reach goals, is expected to increase research capacity and strengthen performance. So far, this has not been empirically demonstrated. We assessed what and how network collaboration adds to development of researchers.

DESIGN

Exploratory qualitative study using semistructured online interviews, analysed by inductive and deductive methods. For the deductive analysis, an existing value creation framework to study informal learning in networks was used and adjusted to our context.

SETTING

The CanTest Collaborative-an international team of primary care cancer researchers working on early detection and diagnosis of cancer.

PARTICIPANTS

Sixteen primary care cancer researchers.

RESULTS

Connections with other researchers in an international network created diverse value cycles, where most outcomes were in the potential value cycle, acquiring knowledge, skills, social capital, resources and ideas. Not all potential value will be applied but many interviewees described realised as well as transformational value. In our context, the transformational value from the framework appeared to be related to other perspectives on the research process. Advancement of the network depends on opportunities, timing, role models and connections between different perspectives.

CONCLUSIONS

Focus on the factors that are relevant for network advancement will support researchers in early detection and diagnosis of cancer research patients who participate in an international network and bring sustainable change in this domain. When, subsequently, researchers in the CanTest network bring about more realised and transformational learning outcomes, this will contribute to capacity development.

Measuring the Impact of a Faculty Development Program on Clinical Educators

INTRODUCTION

An Academy of Clinical Educators (ACE) was established at the University of Newcastle, to support and build capacity among existing and prospective medical educators. ACE established a Certificate of Clinical Teaching and Supervision (CCTS) program, the final assessment of which was a reflective piece on how the course has affected participants' practice as clinical teachers or supervisors and how changes are expected to impact learner achievement. We conducted a qualitative evaluation of these to explore the impact of the CCTS on participants' teaching.

METHODS

Thirty-one participants (of 90 completers to date) consented for their written reflections to undergo qualitative thematic analysis and completed a survey exploring their preparation for, and experience of the program, and application of skills learnt.

RESULTS

Most participants reported applying the skills gained through the CCTS to their teaching practice to a large (n=23; 72%) or very large (n=5; 16%) extent. Four themes emerged from the qualitative data, aligned with the topics of the CCTS: teaching structure; feedback; orientation; and assessment. Participants described application of more structured approaches to orientation, teaching and feedback, positive student responses, and self-reported satisfaction with adopted changes.

DISCUSSION

The CCTS has motivated change in the teaching practice of participants. Although evidence presented here is limited by the self-reported nature, descriptions of actual changes in practice were detailed and specific enough to suggest they could act as a proxy for objectively measured change in behaviour and outcome.

CONCLUSION

A faculty development program delivered to clinicians with a range of teaching and education-related roles, from varied clinical disciplines and professions, can promote improved, structured teaching and feedback.

Modelling the abstract knots in supply chains using interpretive structural modelling (ISM) approaches: a review-based comprehensive toolkit

Purpose

This study endeavours to (a) develop a comprehensive interpretive structural modelling (ISM) toolkit containing sufficient details about the suitability and procedural aspects of each ISM approach and offer points of reference for budding researchers, (b) highlight the compatibility of ISM approaches with other qualitative and quantitative approaches, and (c) chalk-out an agenda for future research.

Design/methodology/approach

This study is based on an extensive review of 74 studies where researchers have used one or more ISM approaches. These studies span across the different industry sectors.

Findings

There exists a huge void in terms of the methodological synthesis of ISM approaches. ISM approaches are frequently used in sync with other qualitative and quantitative approaches. Furthermore, it highlights the need of improving the robustness of the proposed ISM models by sharing the critical details of research process.

Research limitations/implications

Being a review-based work, it could not illustrate the discussed ISM approaches with real data. However, it offers a research agenda for the prospective researchers.

Practical implications

The prerequisites, pitfalls, suitability and the procedural aspects of various ISM approaches contained in this toolkit are equally useful for the academicians as well as practitioners.

Originality/value

In the absence of a synthesized framework, this study contributes a comprehensive ISM toolkit which will help the researchers to choose a suitable ISM approach in a given case.

Organizational impact of faculty development programs on the medical teacher's competencies

BACKGROUND

Faculty development programs as useful approaches for organizational development improved competencies in faculty members which assist them to cope with workload and environment changes. Evaluating organizational development for faculty development programs provides insight into the impact of these programs on system development. The aim of present study was conducted to study the organizational development for faculty development programs at Kerman University of Medical Sciences.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This analytical and cross-sectional study was conducted between October and December 2020. The organizational development for faculty development questionnaire was sent to a simple random sampling of 100 faculty members who had been participated in the "Medical Education Fellowship" program. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics including independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA, and post hoc, using version 24.0 of SPSS.

RESULTS

The response rate was 82%. Most of the faculty highly agreed that the "Medical Education Fellowship" program had produced organizational development. The score of the "Development and sustaining faculty development programs" domain (mean = 3.35, standard deviation [SD] =0.96) was higher than "Development and innovation in teaching and learning process" (mean = 3.31, SD = 0.74).

CONCLUSIONS

Specific characteristics of the organizational development process for faculty development programs in health profession education were recognized. The findings emphasized on the importance of these interventions on creating developments in the broader community system.

Clinical teachers' perceptions of role modeling: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND

Role modeling has been significantly considered in medical education in recent decades. In the clinical course, students learn necessary skills and accordingly their professional identity is formed by observing and working among clinical educators. Given the importance of the role modeling in medical education, in the present study, it was attempted to explore the clinical teachers' perceptions of being a role model for medical students using a qualitative method.

METHODS

A qualitative design, based on the content analysis approach, was used to analyze the perspectives of 15 clinical teachers. Participants were chosen by purposeful sampling. Data were collected using reflection paper writing.

RESULTS

During the data analysis, five main categories emerged: influencing others, developing different dimensions of student, situational self-awareness, feedback and continuous effort.

CONCLUSIONS

This study will be useful to form role modeling educational programs. Encouraging clinical teachers to make continuous efforts to improve role modeling and educating time management and self-control skills can help reduce the challenges of role modeling for clinical teachers.

Psychometric evaluation of a questionnaire to evaluate organizational capacity development for faculty development programs

BACKGROUND

Organizational capacity development is an important outcome of faculty development programs, but there is a lack of an appropriate instrument for its evaluation.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire to evaluate the organizational capacity development for faculty development programs and to test its psychometrics.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The initial capacity development for faculty development questionnaire (CDQ-FD) of 26 items was developed based on a literature review and opinion of experts. Content validity ratio (CVR), content validity index (CVI), content validity index for items (I-CVI), and the content validity index for scales (S-CVI) were computed for content validity. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) were performed for construct validation.

RESULTS

The score for CVR, CVI, I-CVI, and S-CVI was 0.71, 0.83, 0.87, and 0.90, respectively. EFA resulted in a three-factor model with total variance extraction of 64%. Cronbach's alpha and Spearman Brown coefficient were investigated for reliability assessment. The Cronbach's alpha of overall scale was 0.8 and the test-retest reliability of the overall scale was 0.78. The final CDQ-FD contained 21 items and three categories.

CONCLUSIONS

The CDQ-FD questionnaire appears to be a valid and reliable instrument for the evaluation of organizational capacity development for faculty development in the medical education.