title: Measuring educational workload: a pilot study of paper-based and PDA tools.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Teaching is an important professional role for most faculty members in academic health sciences centres. Careful delineation of educational workload is needed to foster and reward teaching efforts, and to facilitate equitable allocation of resources.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To promote recognition in teaching and facilitate equitable resource allocation, we developed, piloted, and qualitatively assessed a tool for delineating the educational workload of pediatric faculty in an academic health sciences centre.
  
  
  METHODS
  A prototype educational workload measurement tool was developed. Between 2002 and 2004, three successive phases of pilot implementation were conducted to (1) assess the face validity of the tool, (2) assess its feasibility, and (3) develop and assess the feasibility of a PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) version. Participants were interviewed regarding strengths, weaknesses, and barriers to completion. Data were analyzed for recurrent themes.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Faculty found that the tool was usable and represented a broad range of educational activities. The PDA format was easier to use and better received. Technical support would be imperative for long-term implementation. The greatest barriers to implementation were skepticism about the purpose of the tool and concerns that it would promote quantity over quality of teaching.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We developed a usable tool to capture data on the diverse educational workload of pediatric faculty. PDA technology can be used to facilitate collection of workload data. Faculty skepticism is an important barrier that should be addressed in future work.
authors.affiliation: University of Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tallett
authors.forename: Lorelei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lingard
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Leslie
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Pirie
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jefferies
authors.forename: Lawrence
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Spero
authors.forename: Rayfel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Hilliard
authors.forename: Jay
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rosenfield
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hellmann
authors.forename: Marcellina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mian
authors.forename: Jennifer
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Hurley
mesh_terms: D034201:Computers, Handheld; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration*; D005180:Faculty, Medical; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D010372:Pediatrics / Q000193:education; D010865:Pilot Projects; D016526:Workload