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Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research

September, 2019, Volume 21, 2, pp 15804-15807

Research Article

Research Article

Perception of the Faculty Participants Participated in First Teachers’ Training Workshop Conducted at Universal College of Medical Sciences Bhairahawa Nepal

Piryani Rano Mal1*, Piryani Suneel2, Khanal Rita3, Chaudhary Nagendra4, Sahi Aakash5, Karn Abhishek6 and Joshi Kalit Raj7

Author Affiliations

1Head of Department of Internal Medicine and Chief Coordinator- Health Professions Training Committee, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

2Department of Community Health Sciences, Agha Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan

3Department of Clinical Microbiology, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

4Department of Pediatrics, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

5Department of Internal Medicine, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

6Department of Forensic, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

7Department of Prosthodontics, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

Received: September 05, 2019 | Published: September 12, 2019

Corresponding author: Piryani Rano Mal, Professor of Internal Medicine and Chief Coordinator-Health Professions Training Committee, Universal College of Medical Sciences, Bhairahawa, Nepal

DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2019.21.003587

Abstract

Introduction: Teachers training workshop helps health professionals in acquiring and developing educational skills, thereby improving teaching learning and assessment practices. Universal College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) Bhairahawa, Nepal organized 6-days teachers training workshop in March 11-16, 2019. The objective of this study was to take feedback of the participant faculty members and assess their perceptions.

Methodology: The feedback of the participants was taken on the valid semistructured questionnaire about their perceptions. The questionnaire was composed of four parts: A) demographic information, B) overall feedback on training workshop, C) feedback on specific group of sessions and D) feedback for improvement. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 21.

Results: The participants rated training on scale 1-10 (1=poor, 10=excellent) regarding its usefulness (8.39±0.98), content (8.17±0.86), relevance of session & content (7.78±1.21), facilitation (8.11±0.83) and training as overall (8.17±0.79). The rating was remarkable. The rating on scale 1-10 (1=poor, 10=excellent) for “sessions on curriculum” (7.94±0.87) and “sessions on teaching/learning methods” (7.89±0.9) conducted in training workshop was notable. While rating on “sessions on PBL” (3.22±0.43), “sessions on microteaching” (3.17±0.62) and sessions on assessment (3.11±0.68) was also noteworthy on Likert scale 1-4 (1=not important, 4=extremely important). All the participants agreed to strongly agreed (3.56±0.50) that this training has transformed them as better educator. Interactive sessions, competent and caring resource persons, friendly learning environment, small group activities, and well structured, were among the strengths of workshop shared by the participants. They suggested to make improvement in venue as well as in audiovisual aids, and allocate more time for microteaching sessions, communication skills and group activities.

Conclusion: Overall feedback of the participants on training was positive. They perceived that the training was well structured, interactive and conducted in conducive environment, however, they suggested to make improvement in venue and audiovisual aids.

Keywords: Feedback; Faculty Development; Perception; Teachers’ Training

Introduction

Faculty development programs (FDPs) support all faculty members in enhancing and updating their professional competences and expand their professional practices. To improve educational environment and academic performance of learners, strengthening the capacity of faculty in fundamental domains of teaching, assessing, research and professionalism is vital [1-4]. Teaching is one of the competencies of health professions faculty to be learnt, acquired and assimilated. Teachers training workshop is among the FDPs helps in acquiring and developing educational skills, thereby improving teaching learning and assessment practices [5-8]. With the objective to enhance the capacity of faculty members in their role as educators focusing on teaching, learning and assessing the students, Health Professions Training Committee (HPTC) of Universal College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) Bhairahawa, Nepal organized 6-days teachers training workshop in March 11-16, 2019. The objective of this study was to take feedback of the participant faculty members and assess their perceptions as immediate feedback helps in updating the content of training, enriching delivery of content and improving training environment and arrangement.

Methodology

Universal College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) Bhairahawa, Nepal established in 1998 affiliated to Tribhuvan University, Institute of Medicine (TU, IOM), Kathmandu, Nepal have been running undergraduate courses in medicine, dentistry, nursing, and pharmacy and postgraduate courses in medicine, dentistry, nursing and allied sciences. UCMS, first time organized 6-days teachers training workshop in March 11-16, 2019. Principal author as a chief coordinator of Health Professions Training Committee (HPTC), UCMC conducted the teachers’ training workshop as a principal resource person. Twelve other resource persons/ facilitators took sessions on different subjects of health professions education. Eighteen participants participated in training; 6 were from clinical sciences departments, 4 each from basic sciences and dental sciences departments, and 2 each from nursing sciences and allied sciences departments. The curriculum of teachers’ training workshop comprised of five groups of sessions: Group-I sessions on curriculum, Group -II sessions on teaching/learning, Group-III sessions on problem-based learning (PBL), Group -IV sessions on microteaching, and Group-V sessions on assessment.

Group-I Sessions on Curriculum

Sessions included in this group were: Role of Faculty & Faculty Development Program, Teaching Communication Skills, Feedback Skills, Essence of Curriculum & Syllabus, Introduction to Behavioral Objectives & group Work on Writing Behavioral Objectives, Community Based/Community Oriented Medical Education- Modern Concepts & Approaches, Ethics for Medical Educator and Role of Teacher.

Group-II Sessions Teaching/Learning

Sessions included in this group were: Overview of Teaching/ Learning Methods, Small Group Dynamics and Small Group Discussion, Role Play, Principles of Adult Learning, Interactive Teaching/Learning Methods, Teaching Clinical Skills, Role of Standardized Patients & Skill Lab in Clinical Skills Teaching with Group Work on Script Writing for Standardized Patient.

Group-III Sessions on PBL

Sessions included in this group were: Overview of PBL in Health Professions Education, Criteria for Selection of Problem for PBL session with Mock PBL session, Developing Scenario/Problem for PBL with Group Work, Preparation of Tutor Guide for developed scenario with Group Work and Small Group Tutorial for PBL.

Group-IV Sessions on Microteaching

Sessions included in this group were: Introduction to Microteaching, Lesson Plan for Microteaching, Use of Audiovisual Aids, Preparation of lesson plan and presentation by individual participant for Microteaching, Microteaching Practice by participants, Video Recording and Video Review with reflection of individual participant and observation of peer and supervisor (assessor).

Group-IV Sessions on Assessment

Sessions included in this group were: Basics of Assessment with Group Work on Blueprinting for Assessment, Assessment of Knowledge & Understanding with Group Work developing MCQs, Assessing Clinical Skills and Attitude I with group Work on OSCE/ OSPE Assessing Clinical Skills and Attitude II-Short-case, Long case & Viva Voce and Other Methods of Assessment including Performance Based Assessment (PBA) & Workplace Based Assessment (WPBA). At the end of teachers training workshop, feedback of the participants was taken on the valid semi-structured questionnaire about their perceptions. The questionnaire was composed of four parts.

Part A. Demographic Information: Information were sought on age in years, sex, year of graduation and post-graduation, teaching experience of teaching undergraduate and post graduate and medical education related training attended before.

Part B. Overall Feedback on Training Workshop: This part had two close ended questions. One was on rating training on scale 1-10 (1=poor, 10=excellent) for usefulness, content, relevance, facilitation and training as overall. Another question was whether training transformed you as better educator rated on Likert Scale 1-4 (4=Strongly agree, 3=Fairly agree, 2=Slightly agree, 1=Not agree).

Part C. Feedback on Specific Group of Sessions: This part contained five closed ended questions. The first two questions were on rating sessions on curriculum and on teaching/learning methods conducted in training on scale 1-10 (1=poor, 10=excellent); while three questions were on rating sessions on PBL, sessions on Microteaching and sessions on Assessment on Likert scale 1-4 (4=extremely Important, 3=moderately important, 2=slightly important, 1=not important).

Part D. Feedback for Improvement: This part had three open ended questions. One was on good points/strengths of training, second on areas for improvement and third on additional comments. The collected data was checked for completeness, accuracy and consistency and entered in IBMS SPSS version 21 for analysis. Descriptive analysis was done. The frequency, mean and standard deviation were computed.

Results

Part A. Demographic Information

The age of participants was 34.063.7 years (range 29-42 years); 13 were males and 5 females. The teaching experience was 4.253.0 years (range 8 months to 11 years) for teaching undergraduate students and 2.02.0 years (range 0 months to 7 years) for teaching postgraduate. Their year of graduation were between 2003-2014 and of post-graduation between 2010-2018. Only one participant received medical education related training before.

Part B. Overall feedback on Training Workshop

The participant rated the Teachers’ Training Workshop on scale 1-10 (1=poor, 10=excellent); the rating was notable (Table 1). Participants response on “Will this training transform you a better educator?” was noteworthy (3.56±0.50) rated on Likert Scale 1-4. (4=Strongly agree, 3=Fairly agree, 2=Slightly agree, 1=Not agree).

Table 1: Rating of the participant on “Teachers’ Training Workshop”.

Part C. Feedback on Specific Group of Sessions

The rating of the participants on specific group of sessions conducted in Teachers’ Training Workshop” was also remarkable (Table 2).

Table 2: RRating of the participants on specific group of sessions conducted in “Teachers’ Training Workshop”.

Part D. Feedback for Improvement (Feedback Tables 1 & 2)

Additional Comments

“My perspective was changed after attending the training. Before training, I thought to attend the training, spent 6 days and get certificate necessary for faculty verification and promotion”. But at the end of training my perspective changed. It was not only getting the certificate, but it is a must training to attend to become a good teacher, good doctor, good health professional and good human being too” uttered by one participant. One participant stated, “I suggest the senior faculties should also undergo this teacher training program.” One participant mentioned. “All the principles of faculty training would like to implement as much as possible in real life”. Nine participants expressed principal resource person was very motivating, inspiring, energetic, friendly & role model for all participants”.

Discussion

It has been reported that the faculty development programs (FDPs) including teachers training workshop foster the teaching and assessing capacity of faculty of health professions [1]. The objective of present study was to take feedback of the participant faculty members of teachers training workshop and assess their perception as immediate feedback helps in updating the content of training workshop, improving delivery of content in incoming workshops, refining training environment and bringing out improvement in arrangement.

The rating of participants was remarkable on scale 1-10 (1=poor, 10=excellent) regarding usefulness of training workshop, content of training, relevance of session & content, facilitation and training as overall. All the participants agreed to strongly agreed that this training has transformed them as better educator. The rating on “sessions on curriculum” and “sessions on teaching/learning methods” conducted in training workshop was notable rated on scale 1-10 (1=poor, 10=excellent). While rating on “sessions on PBL”, “sessions on microteaching” and sessions on assessment was also noteworthy on Likert scale 1-4 (1= not important, 4= extremely important).

Interactive sessions, supportive, friendly, competent and caring resource persons, friendly learning environment, small group activities, session applicable to our work, concise and informative content, learning about newer methods of assessment, good presentation of contents and well structured, planned, conducted and managed workshop among the strengths of workshop shared by the participants. They suggested to make improvement in venue as well as in audiovisual aids, add short breaks in lengthy sessions and allocate more time for microteaching sessions, communication skills and group activities. One of the participants mentioned that “My perspective was changed after attending the training. Before training, I thought to attend the training, spent 6 days and get certificate necessary for faculty verification and promotion. But at the end of training my perspective changed. It was not only getting the certificate, but it is a must training to attend to become a good teacher, good doctor, good health professional and good human being too”.

The findings of our study are consistent with studies conducted in recent past. The participants of teachers training workshops conducted at B.P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences, Nepal mentioned that training was informative, learnt teaching learning methods, assessment technique and better skilled in teaching abilities reported by Baral et al. in their study in 2015 [8]. The study conducted by Joshi M, et al [6] revealed that faculty development workshop conducted at Patan Academy of Health Sciences Nepal was effective in improving faculty’s knowledge and application in the areas of adult teaching- learning and feedback cycle and principles of student assessments. Kamel [5] in his review article “Role of faculty development programs” concluded that professional training programs produce promising outcomes in the learning and teaching practices. Piryani et al. [3] stated that the self-reported perceived confidence level of the participants was significantly increased after teachers training workshops conducted at Chitwan Medical College Nepal. Systemic review and meta-analysis done by Bilal et al endorses faculty development programs as these foster the teaching, assessing, research, leadership, and administrative skills of medical and allied health faculty [2].

Limitation and Conclusion

This study is limited by small sample size and assessing the perceptions/immediate reaction of the participants but not longterm impact. Overall the feedback of participants was positive and constructive regarding the usefulness, content, relevance and facilitation of training and participants recognized the importance of sessions on curriculum, teaching/learning methods, PBL”, microteaching” and assessment. The training was well structured, interactive, conducted in conducive environment by competent and caring resource persons mentioned by the participants, however, they suggested to make improvement in venue and audiovisual aids.

Conflict of Interest

There is no conflict of interest.

References

Research Article

Perception of the Faculty Participants Participated in First Teachers’ Training Workshop Conducted at Universal College of Medical Sciences Bhairahawa Nepal

Piryani Rano Mal1*, Piryani Suneel2, Khanal Rita3, Chaudhary Nagendra4, Sahi Aakash5, Karn Abhishek6 and Joshi Kalit Raj7

Author Affiliations

1Head of Department of Internal Medicine and Chief Coordinator- Health Professions Training Committee, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

2Department of Community Health Sciences, Agha Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan

3Department of Clinical Microbiology, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

4Department of Pediatrics, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

5Department of Internal Medicine, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

6Department of Forensic, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

7Department of Prosthodontics, UCMS, Bhairahawa, Nepal

Received: September 05, 2019 | Published: September 12, 2019

Corresponding author: Piryani Rano Mal, Professor of Internal Medicine and Chief Coordinator-Health Professions Training Committee, Universal College of Medical Sciences, Bhairahawa, Nepal

DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2019.21.003587

Abstract

Introduction: Teachers training workshop helps health professionals in acquiring and developing educational skills, thereby improving teaching learning and assessment practices. Universal College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) Bhairahawa, Nepal organized 6-days teachers training workshop in March 11-16, 2019. The objective of this study was to take feedback of the participant faculty members and assess their perceptions.

Methodology: The feedback of the participants was taken on the valid semistructured questionnaire about their perceptions. The questionnaire was composed of four parts: A) demographic information, B) overall feedback on training workshop, C) feedback on specific group of sessions and D) feedback for improvement. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 21.

Results: The participants rated training on scale 1-10 (1=poor, 10=excellent) regarding its usefulness (8.39±0.98), content (8.17±0.86), relevance of session & content (7.78±1.21), facilitation (8.11±0.83) and training as overall (8.17±0.79). The rating was remarkable. The rating on scale 1-10 (1=poor, 10=excellent) for “sessions on curriculum” (7.94±0.87) and “sessions on teaching/learning methods” (7.89±0.9) conducted in training workshop was notable. While rating on “sessions on PBL” (3.22±0.43), “sessions on microteaching” (3.17±0.62) and sessions on assessment (3.11±0.68) was also noteworthy on Likert scale 1-4 (1=not important, 4=extremely important). All the participants agreed to strongly agreed (3.56±0.50) that this training has transformed them as better educator. Interactive sessions, competent and caring resource persons, friendly learning environment, small group activities, and well structured, were among the strengths of workshop shared by the participants. They suggested to make improvement in venue as well as in audiovisual aids, and allocate more time for microteaching sessions, communication skills and group activities.

Conclusion: Overall feedback of the participants on training was positive. They perceived that the training was well structured, interactive and conducted in conducive environment, however, they suggested to make improvement in venue and audiovisual aids.

Keywords: Feedback; Faculty Development; Perception; Teachers’ Training