Assessing the effectiveness of faculty development programs

This article describes a complex study designed to assess the efficacy of two faculty development programs, one extended three-year program and one intensive five-day summer workshop, which were intended to help faculty members learn about, design, and implement active, student-centered teaching techniques. The authors note that faculty development programs are typically evaluated through participant self-reports; the unique contribution of this study is to add classroom observations to the data-collection methods used in such evaluations.