Developing teaching skills for medical educators in Russia: a cross-cultural faculty development project.
BACKGROUND
Faculty development programmes have proved successful for improving teaching skills. We investigated whether or not a successful US-based faculty development programme for improving the teaching skills of medical faculty could be transported to Russia.


METHODS
Five seminars, based on the 7 categories of the Stanford Faculty Development Program model, were presented to 48 teachers at Kazan State Medical University in Kazan, Russia. The seminars were comprised of mini-lectures, reviews of actual videotaped teaching scenario re-enactments, interactive role plays of teaching situations, and personalised goal setting for future teaching performance. Evaluation was performed through participants' self-reported ratings of teaching ability based on a retrospective pretest/post-test questionnaire and fulfilment of commitment of change (CTC) statements written by workshop participants. Outcomes were measured at both 1 and 12 months post-intervention.


RESULTS
Survey response rates were 98% (47/48) at 1 month and 81% (39/48) at 12 months. Global teaching performance improved (pretest = 38.4, 1 month post-test = 43.7, 12 months post-test = 42.5; P < 0.001) as did ratings of specific teaching behaviours (pretest = 100.2, 1 month post-test = 121.3, 12 months post-test = 116.8; P < 0.001). A total of 127 CTC statements were made and 90 (71%) were successfully instituted.


CONCLUSIONS
Our faculty development intervention demonstrated a positive, lasting effect on the teaching skills of Russian faculty members. This suggests that our efforts in transporting this intervention across the 2 cultures were successful.
Wong
Jeffrey G
JG
College of Medicine Dean's Office, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, SC 29425, USA. wong@musc.edu
Agisheva
Kadria
K
D000328:Adult; D003469:Culture; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016730:Program Development; D012426:Russia; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*; D014481:United States