Introduction
Doctors play a pivotal role in medical education.1,2 However, barriers to teaching such exist, including competing time commitments and self-perceived lack of teaching ability or knowledge.3 We surveyed foundation year 1 (FY1) doctors who were providing regular medical student teaching to assess the impact of teaching on the doctors’ confidence and abilities. We collected feedback from the students they taught to correlate student perception of doctors’ abilities with doctors’ self-assessment.
Materials and methods
FY1 doctors who provided lectures and/or regular bedside teaching to third year medical students were surveyed before and after a teaching programme that ran between August 2020 and August 2021. Student feedback was collected, matched to the teacher. Doctors’ pre- and post-teaching responses were compared using Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Spearman's rank correlation was used to test for significant correlations.
Results
24 doctors taught 124 students. Pre- to post-teaching programme scores improved significantly by between 12% and 21% for all domains (preparing teaching, presenting, providing feedback and knowledge - see Table 1.) The number of hours that doctors spent teaching significantly correlated with the improvement in their comfort level at preparing for lessons (rho 0.558; p=0.011), students’ perception of the relevance of their content (rho 0.239; p=0.020) and students’ perception of participation (rho 0.352; p=0.002). Students’ perception of clarity negatively correlated with doctors’ pre-teaching programme self-assessed scores for comfort level at presenting (rho –0.310; p<0.001) and overall self-rating (rho –0.214; p=0.017). There was no such correlation with the corresponding post-teaching scores. Students’ perception of participation positively correlated with doctors’ confidence post-teaching (rho 0.228; p=0.046).
Summary of participating doctors’ pre- and post-teaching programme questionnaire scores
Discussion
After participating in the teaching programme, FY1 doctors report a significant improvement in their self-perceived abilities. The number of hours of teaching positively correlated with student's feedback, indicating that experience plays a role at improving teaching outcomes. Negative correlation between the students’ feedback and doctors’ pre-teaching scores may suggest an initial mismatch between some doctors’ self-perception and their actual ability to teach – less confident doctors were perceived by students are providing clearer teaching. However, this relationship was not present for the post-teaching scores, perhaps indicating increased self-awareness due to their increased experience of teaching.
Conclusion
All FY1 doctors can improve their confidence and teaching outcomes with practice. We would encourage doctors to actively participate in teaching regardless of their self-perceived lack of ability – less confident doctors may actually provide clearer teaching.
- © Royal College of Physicians 2022. All rights reserved.
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