Can today's house officers teach effectively? An assessment in undergraduate emergency training.

Iblher Peter, Zupanic Michaela, Karsten Jan, Brauer Kirk

aDepartment of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University of Luebeck Medical School, Luebeck bInstitute for Teaching and Educational Research in Health Sciences, University of Witten/Herdecke, Witten cDepartment of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Medicine, University of Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany.

Eur J Emerg Med. 2015 Jun;22(3):215-8. doi: 10.1097/MEJ.0000000000000142.

BACKGROUND

Previous publications describe house officers (HOs) as unaware of their ineffective teaching skills.

OBJECTIVE

The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of teaching seniority in the comparison of teaching skills between HOs and faculty.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Ten HOs (F: n=4, M: n=6, age: 35.1±6.8 years) and nine faculty (F: n=3, M: n=6, age: 41.4±4.9 years) who actively teach undergraduate emergency medicine were immediately evaluated at the end of the course by their students using the questionnaire SFDP26. The questionnaire consists of one item on 'overall teaching effectiveness' (OTE) (1=very poor to 5=excellent) and 25 items measured on a five-point Likert scale (1-5=strongly disagree to strongly agree) divided into seven subscales: 1, 'establishing the learning climate' (LC); 2, 'control of session' (CS); 3, 'communication of goals' (CG); 4, 'facilitating understanding and retention' (UR); 5, 'evaluation' (E); 6, 'feedback' (FB) and 7, 'promoting self-directed learning' (SL). The sample included 173 medical students in their third year of training who were randomly assigned to the instructors. A Mann-Whitney U-test was used to calculate group-related differences (resident vs. teaching faculty). For significant differences, effect size was calculated (r=Z/√N).

RESULTS

No sex-related differences were found. Significantly better ratings for HOs were found in subscales: 1, 'LC' (P=0.001; r=0.20); 2, 'CS' (P=0.037; r=0.15); 5, 'E' (P=0.007; r=0.20); 6, 'FB' (P=0.001; r=0.23); 7, 'SL' (P=0.004; r=0.24) and 'OTE' (P=0.027; r=0.26).

CONCLUSION

From a learner's perspective, the quality of teaching provided by HOs was rated at least similar and mostly better overall than that provided by faculty. These findings contradict results from previous studies on the quality of HO teaching and therefore warrant further assessment.