Evaluating Clinical Educators' Competence in an East Asian Context: Who Values What?

BackgroundHow to evaluate clinical educators is an important question in faculty development. The issue of who are best placed to evaluate their performance is also critical. However, the whos and the hows of clinical educator evaluation may differ culturally. This study aims to understand what comprises suitable evaluation criteria, alongside who is best placed to undertake the evaluation of clinical educators in medicine within an East Asian culture: specifically Taiwan. MethodsAn 84-item web-based questionnaire was created based on a literature review and medical educational experts' opinions focusing on potential raters (i.e., who) and domains (i.e., what) for evaluating clinical educators. Using purposive sampling, we sent 500 questionnaires to clinical educators, residents, Post-Graduate Year Trainees (PGYs), Year-4~6/Year-7 medical students (M4~6/M7) and nurses. ResultsWe received 258 respondents with 52% response rate. All groups, except nurses, chose teaching ability as the most important domain. This contrasts with research from Western contexts that highlights role modeling, leadership and enthusiasm. The clinical educators and nurses have the same choices of the top five items in the personal qualities domain, but different choices in assessment ability and curriculum planning domains. The best fit rater groups for evaluating clinical educators were educators themselves and PGYs. ConclusionsThere may well be specific suitable domains and populations for evaluating clinical educators' competence in East Asian culture contexts. Further research in these contexts is required to examine the reach of these findings.

Automated summary

This study explored the evaluation criteria and raters for clinical educators in an East Asian culture, specifically Taiwan, finding that teaching ability was considered a crucial domain by all groups except nurses. The best fit raters for evaluating clinical educators were found to be educators themselves and Post-Graduate Year Trainees (PGYs). Further research is needed to examine the specific domains and populations for evaluating clinical educators in East Asian culture contexts.