The Empirical Validation of Clinical Teaching Strategies

Abstract

The precepts for teaching recommended to clinical teachers tend to be based on common sense, practical wisdom, and expert opinion rather than on empirical validation against appropriate outcome measures of learning. This article describes an initial attempt to validate empirically the effectiveness of certain clinical teaching strategies in an Introduction to Clinical Medicine (ICM) course. Students' assessments of their first-year ICM tutors' teaching skills were correlated with those same students' clinicalperformances, as assessed by the students' second-year clinical tutors. There were statistical significant positive correlations between students' ratings of some ICM tutor teaching skills and some aspects of student performance, as evaluated by the second-year clinical tutors. The results suggest that clinical teachers who follow what are generally considered to be "good basic educational principles," such as setting clear expectations, providing adequate supervision, providing feedback, and showing concern for students' progress, have a positive impact on the subsequent clinical performance of their students. Implications for faculty development and further research are discussed.