# Faculty development and career success in clinical teaching

## TL;DR

This study examines how faculty development programs affect the career success of clinical teachers through student feedback, teaching awards, and publications.

## Contribution

The study identifies specific FD components that correlate with student feedback and teaching awards but not directly with scholarly publications.

## Key findings

- Faculty development hours correlate with positive student feedback but not with teaching awards or publications.
- Research-focused FD hours are linked to better feedback and more teaching awards.
- Teaching awards are strongly correlated with student feedback and publications.

## Abstract

To explore the effectiveness of overall
faculty development (FD) programs in terms of three indicators of successful
careers of clinical teachers (CTs): positive feedback (on personality traits or
teaching skills) from students, teaching awards, and scholarly publications.

Data on student feedback, number of teaching
awards, number of scholarly publications, and sum of FD participation hours in
a teaching hospital with 23 clinical departments and 623 clinical faculty
members (2019-2021) were collected and analyzed using Spearman’s rank-order
correlation coefficient (rs) and independent-samples t-tests (with
Welch’s correction where appropriate).

The sum of FD
hours was significantly associated with positive feedback from students (rs
= 0.15, p = .001) but not with teaching awards or publications. Furthermore,
faculty members with more FD hours on research skills received better positive
feedback from students regarding personal traits or teaching skills (Cohen’s d
= 0.60, 95% CI [0.34, 0.86], p < .001) and more teaching awards (Cohen’s d =
0.34, 95 % CI [0.13, 0.55], p = .010) but did not have a greater number of
publications (Cohen’s d = 0.15, 95% CI [-0.07, 0.36], p = .780) than those with
lower research FD hours. In addition, the number of teaching awards was
significantly associated with positive feedback from students regarding
personal traits (rs = 0.92, p < .001) or teaching skills (rs
= 0.93, p < .001), and publication quantity (rs = 0.13, p <
.001) was markedly correlated with the number of teaching awards.

FD activities
may provide positive impacts on CTs in terms of feedback from students and
teaching awards but do not directly impact scholarly publications. However,
faculty members who received teaching awards and positive feedback from
students may have better scholarly publication performance.