Influence of a faculty development workshop on clinical evaluation practices in a nurse anesthesia program

Abstract

Faculty development has a number of benefits in academiaacademia. Specifically, in nurse anesthesia education, doctoral programs are required to provide faculty development for their clinical instructors. In order to fulfill this requirement and satisfy faculty’s desire for growth, an evidence-based faculty development workshop on clinical evaluation was implemented at a school of nurse anesthesia education program which offers a doctorate of nursing practice and a nurse anesthesia certificate. The purpose of this pilot study was to determine if a workshop on clinical evaluation will have an impact on faculty’s clinical evaluation practices. Of the 35 eligible clinical instructors, 30 participated in at least one session of the two education sessions. To measure changes in evaluation practices, scores on the assessment portion of the survey tool developed for the American Therapy Association Clinical Instructor Education and Credentialing Program prior to the workshop were compared to scores following the workshop at eight and 16 weeks. There was a significant difference (p<0.5) in post education sessions survey scores for three questions on the second post-test. The findings of this study were then utilized to develop a clinical evaluation tool and will further be used to plan future faculty development offerings.