Theme
3JJ Staff development
INSTITUTION
Benha faculty of medicine - Neurosurgery - Cairo
Clinical learning is influenced by several factors including learning environment, and teaching staff skills; lack of these skills may lead to poor quality of clinical education.
This study is conducted to develop and evaluate a training program for developing clinical teaching skills of lecturers at Benha faculty of Medicine in Egypt.
Methodology:
The study includes 70 lecturers working at clinical faculty departments, and 425 students enrolled in their 5th and 6th academic years. Three tools were used for data collection; first: lecturers' knowledge questionnaire, second: lecturers' observation check list, and third: students' satisfaction questionnaire. These tools were employed directly pre/post the program, and again after three months. The program was carried out in the form of two sessions per week (3 hours each) for 2 months during the 2012-2013 academic year.
Research Design:
A Quasi-experimental design was used to carry out this study.
Tools:
The following three tools were employed by the researcher after reviewing relevant literature.
1st tool (Figure 1): Lecturer's knowledge questionnaire sheet:
This was used to assess the lecturer's knowledge regarding clinical teaching skills. 50 questions constitute this questionnaire; these questions are categorized under 5 dimensions:
- Clinical teaching and learning
- Clinical teaching and strategies
- Clinical competence
- Clinical training
- Clinical evaluation
2nd tool (Table 2): Lecturer's observation check list
This check list was used to assess the actual performance of the lecturers during clinical training. It consisted of 132 items constituting 6 categories
- Personal characteristics (21 items)
- Interpersonal relationship (10 items)
- Professional competence (27 items)
- Promoting effective and conductive CLE (10 items)
- Educational competence (the role of lecturers) (52 item)
- The role of the lecturer as an assessor and evaluator (12 items)
3rd tool (Table 3): Students' satisfaction questionnaire sheet
It was used to assess and measure students' satisfaction about the performance of the lecturer. This questionnaire is of 95 items that are categorized into 5 main categories
- Personal characteristics (12 items)
- Interpersonal relationship with others (10 items)
- The role of lecturers as educators (56 items)
- The Clinical Learning Environment (CLE) (6 items)
- The clinical competence (11 items)
The scores of the three assessments (tools) pre/post and the three months after the program are detailed in the results section as follows:
- 1st tool in Figure 1
- 2st tool in Table 2
- 3rd tool in Table 3
- There were statistically significant increase in the mean scores assigned to the lecturers regarding their clinical teaching skills knowledge and performance after the implementation of the program, compared to the scores before implementation.
- A similar result occurred for the mean scores of students regarding their level of satisfaction throughout all phases.
- It is, however, important to point that the mean scores of all items and decreased three months after the program's end, compared to the immediate outcome after the implementation of the program but still higher than the pre program levels.
- The study results revealed that the implementation of this training program resulted in statistically significant improvement of lecturers clinical teaching skills (knowledge and performance), and students' satisfaction in relation to performance of lecturers in the clinical sitting. The mean scores of all items were decreased after 3 months in comparison to immediate post program.
- The most satisfying lecturer as reported by students is the lecturer who possess 18 crucial characteristics detailed in the more info section
Recommendation:
We recommended that introducing such educational training program before employment for the lecturers may develop their clinical teaching skills, roles, characteristics, and responsibility In the clinical sitting. In addition; this may help the developing of new teaching/learning strategies in medical school.
I would like to thank both the instructors and students for their collaboration in bringing this research into being. I would also like to thank my respective institution and colleagues for ideas and help throughout the process.