The effect of two different faculty development interventions on third-year clerkship performance evaluations.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Clinical performance evaluations of medical students often fail to identify significant deficiencies. Many physicians are unwilling to give a poor or failing performance evaluation. Consequently, many clinical rotation grades are inflated and do not reflect actual student performance. We developed a computer-based faculty development tutorial designed to teach faculty members to use defined standards in the evaluation process and to give accurate performance grades to students and residents. METHODS We administered the tutorial to 25 family medicine faculty members. Immediate posttests and 3-month posttests were given to determine their mastery of the material. Grades were tracked for 2 years prior to the intervention and for the year following the intervention. After the 1-year intervention, the clerkship director went to each site and met directly with each faculty member. The computer tutorial material was reviewed again with faculty members. Grades for this academic year were tracked and compared with the control years and first intervention year. RESULTS The faculty demonstrated mastery of the material and retention at 3 months, yet the grades for the first year following the computer tutorial by itself did not change. However, after establishing a face-to-face intervention, the grades were significantly lower overall, compared to the control (88.3 versus 91.8). CONCLUSIONS Self-directed, computer-based faculty development resulted in knowledge mastery and retention but was by itself not enough to change faculty grading practices. An additional face-to-face intervention did change grading practices. Faculty development via independent study may provide basic knowledge, but it must be combined with direct interaction, feedback, and policy change to influence clinical grading practices.