Aligning teaching practices with an understanding of quality teaching: A faculty development agenda

Background: To guide the future faculty development practices in a better manner, it is important to determine how clinical teachers perceive their own skill development. Aim: The objective of this study was to examine the extent to which clinical teachers aligned their teaching practices, as measured with a self-rating instrument, with their understanding of what constitutes good clinical teaching. Method: A sample of 1523 residents and 737 faculty members completed the clinical teaching perception inventory (CTPI) online and ranked 28 single-word descriptors that characterized clinical teachers along a seven-point scale in two measures, ""My Ideal Teacher"" and ""Myself as a Teacher."" Results: Faculty and residents showed strikingly similar discrepancies, in both their magnitudes and directions, between their ratings of ""My Ideal Teacher"" and those of ""Myself as a Teacher."" Both residents and faculty found it most difficult to develop the stimulating, well-read, and innovative nature to meet their own standards. Conclusions: Data did not support our hypothesis that faculty would demonstrate stronger congruence between ""My Ideal Teacher"" and ""Myself as a Teacher"" than residents. Medical faculty would benefit from future faculty development practices that are designed to assist them in becoming stimulating, well-read, and innovative teachers, while using less control and caution in their teaching.