Faculty Development Program effectiveness in educational events

Abstract

Background Developing clinical and biomedical science faculty to become effective teachers is critical to meet the challenges of medical education. Education research is at a stage in which we have strong theories of student learning, but we do not have well-developed ideas about teacher learning, nor about how to help teachers incorporate new ideas into their ongoing systems of practice. We aim to study the AOSpine Faculty Development program, which consists in a series of training programs at progressive levels. Methods Retrospective study from a prospective database. The information for Faculty performance (national, regional and international) in all AOSpine educational events from 2008 to 2016 was retrospectively reviewed. Additionally we developed a supplementary survey with the participants in 2016. It covered demographic topics and 4 specific questions regarding (1) quality expectations for CME programs, (2) AOSpine events highlights, (3) what could be improved in AOSpine events, and (4) activities of interest. Results We’ve accessed scores from 646 professionals (n=646) in 7,962 evaluations from 2008 to 2016 using a five-point Likert scale. 798 participants replied the 2016 survey from 20 countries of the region. The evaluation for a national Faculty was 4.42 points, the regional 4.56, and for the international faculty 4.53. The mean punctuation for the master course was 4.25, for advanced 4.44, and the value of 4.48 for principles. The Chair Training promoted an increase of the evaluation from 4.44 to 4.52 (p = 0.022) Conclusion The appliance of a Faculty Development Program based on educational strategies directly affects the outcomes of educational events. The 8-years systematic review showed continued improvement of the trained faculty evaluations in all levels.