Perception of Dental Faculty on Face-to-Face and Virtual Programs of Faculty Development; A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Objective: To compare the perception of dental faculty regarding face-to-face and virtual faculty development programs (FDPs) in dental institutes of Karachi. Study design and Setting: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at multiple dental colleges of Karachi.(January to April 2020). Methodology: The study was carried out among 161 faculty members teaching in private dental institutes, using a modified, validated questionnaire with convenient sampling. Data was analyzed on SPSS version 21. Results: The mean age of study participants was 32.31±8.09 years, and teaching experience was 5.01 ± 6.34 years. Majority of the participants had not received any faculty development training (p-value of 0.001). Most of the faculty reported no established faculty development program available either face-to-face or virtually in their respective institute. Majority (28.8 %) of participants perceived that the main barrier for FDPs was the lack of administrative support. However, the facultydesired to enhance their teaching skills, recommending that faculty development programs be made compulsory for all faculty members. The majority of participants (35.43 +ve mean rank) were in favour of face-to-face sessions (p=0.001) but were reluctant towards virtual sessions. Most (49.2 %) of the faculty perceived the foremost benefit of attending FDPs to be improvement in teaching skills and MCQs /EMQs writing. Conclusion: Dental faculty were more inclined towards face-to-face sessions than virtually conducted sessions however, their perception of the utility of FDPs were found to be limited . Moreover, it was that some of the barriers to attend FDPs was faculty determinants like deficient time and dearth of commitment.