The Development of a Faculty Development Program Framework for Medical Education

Abstract

Purpose

Faculty development is vital for sustaining and advancing medical education. While accreditation standards require US medical schools to offer faculty development, existing frameworks lack the specificity to guide program planning, implementation, and evaluation across all key domains—and none have been developed through a systematic, consensus-based process with national medical education leaders. To address this gap, authors launched a pilot initiative to derive a consensus-based framework, entitled the Medical Education Faculty Development Program Framework (FDPF), for undergraduate medical education.

Methods

Over the course of 2021 to 2024, faculty development experts from 3 medical schools conducted a sequential, mixed-methods study in 7 phases to develop the FDPF. Phases included literature and expert conceptual reviews to generate an initial draft, followed by 4 iterative rounds of focus groups and semi-structured interviews with faculty development leaders from national medical education organizations to refine the framework. A short form with 27 quality indicators was then piloted at 2 US medical education conferences in 2023 with a combined sample of 55 faculty development participants.

Results

Focus group and conference participants endorsed the FDPF as potentially valuable for onboarding new faculty development professionals and for self-assessment of institutional programs or accreditation preparation. Across both pilot administrations of the short form, participants reported the highest agreement with quality indicators related to tracking faculty development participation and offering sessions on core teaching topics and learning science. Agreement was lower for indicators related to program alignment with teaching standards, access to faculty performance metrics, preceptor training programs, and support for instructional design.

Conclusions

Iterative expert feedback through focus groups and leader interviews contributed to 2 distinct final products: (1) a concise short form, “27 Quality Indicators of Faculty Development Programs,” designed for rapid self-assessment, and (2) a comprehensive FDPF checklist designed for systematic program benchmarking, design, and enhancement. Together, these tools offer faculty development professionals a systematic, consensus-based resource for driving continuous improvement and adaptability in medical education.

Keywords

faculty development undergraduate medical education program quality

Introduction

Faculty Development is key to a medical school's ability to adjust to transformative changes in health professions. As one example, technology such as generative artificial intelligence platforms, have significant impacts on curriculum design, assessment strategies, and teaching methods.¹ The increasing complexity of healthcare heightens focus on the importance of self-directed learning for adapting to new challenges.² Yet the innovations and changes impacting medical education demand not only that medical students develop new attitudes, skills, and knowledge, but that faculty do so as well.³

The pace of change in medical education has accelerated dramatically, driven by emerging technologies, evolving clinical practices, and an unprecedented expansion of medical knowledge.⁴ For example, the estimated doubling time of medical knowledge shortened from 50 years in 1950 to a projected 73 days by 2020,⁵ underscoring the need for continuous adaptation among educators as well as learners. Faculty development is therefore essential for helping educators acquire the skills, perspectives, and pedagogical strategies required to navigate and respond to these rapid shifts in the educational landscape.

Although all US medical schools are required by accreditation bodies such as the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME)⁶ and the Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA)⁷ to provide faculty development, these standards are not adequately supported by robust evidence.⁸ As a result, institutions must design their own approaches to faculty development without a comprehensive framework to structure program planning, resource allocation, or evaluation⁹ This lack of detailed guidance contributes to wide variation in the scope, priorities, and quality of faculty development programs, pointing to the need for a shared framework.¹⁰

Medical schools develop and conduct faculty development programs independently. While multiple institutions may rely on the same third-party development resource, such as IAMSE's Foundations of Health Professions Education Course,¹¹ the ways in which the materials from such programs are implemented vary considerably across settings. As a result, faculty development programs differ widely in structure, content, and quality. Yet these programs are essential for supporting faculty success across basic, clinical, and health systems sciences^12,13 and their impacts are far-reaching. Faculty developers influence faculty, and these efforts in turn impact students.¹⁴ The scope of impact these students will have on patients underscores the importance of investing in faculty development.¹³ Despite this influence, most medical school faculty receive little formal preparation as educators prior to assuming teaching roles.¹⁵ Establishing clear standards and guidance for faculty development can therefore have significant consequences for the quality of medical education and, ultimately, for healthcare practice.

While the literature offers valuable theoretical and practical contributions to faculty development, there remains no comprehensive framework that enables institutions to tailor programming in a flexible, systematic way to their unique needs and constraints.^13,16,17 Several existing models address specific components of faculty development. Harden and Crosby describe 12 key roles of a teacher.¹⁸ Kohan et al¹² expand upon this model with additional educator roles. Glassick et al¹⁹ outline a framework focused on evaluating scholarly work. Ahmed et al²⁰ propose a tool for longitudinal evaluation of faculty development initiatives. Schultz et al²¹ describe a competency-based process for assessing faculty performance; and Canadian researchers have developed a Fundamental Teaching Activities Framework to guide individual educator development.²² Taken together, prior models and frameworks provide an important foundation for faculty development, yet they do not offer an encompassing, operational approach that institutions can use to design, implement, and evaluate comprehensive faculty development programs. No existing model provides a comprehensive, institution-level framework that integrates program structure, resources, activities, and evaluation to guide faculty development program planning and improvement. This gap underscores the need for a more integrated framework that can accommodate the diverse structures, resources, and priorities of different medical schools. Accordingly, we brought together a community of faculty development experts to develop a consensus-based, institution-level framework that could address this need and guide the creation of high-quality faculty development programs.

To address the need for a more comprehensive and operational faculty development framework, the authors sought perspectives from the community of faculty development experts to develop a consensus-based institution-level model that could guide program design, implementation, and evaluation.²³ Our goal was to clarify the roles, processes, and systems required for high-quality faculty development and to create a practical framework that institutions could adapt to their unique contexts. The study was guided by the following research questions:

What are the consensus quality indicators of undergraduate medical education (UME) faculty development programs, as described by expert faculty developers and other stakeholders?

What do faculty development experts suggest about developing the framework as a scorable inventory with 130 indicators?

What are potential uses for a faculty development quality-measures framework?

Methods

The research team consisted of experienced faculty development leaders from 3 US medical schools, whose professional backgrounds shaped both the initial conceptualization of the Faculty Development Program Framework and the interpretation of participant feedback. As long-standing faculty developers, the researchers brought assumptions about the importance of structured programming, institutional culture, and faculty development systems. The team engaged in ongoing discussions during data collection and analysis to examine how these professional perspectives influenced the coding decisions, interpretation of themes, and iterative refinement of the framework.

Following Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval (protocol #BHS1708), the framework was developed in 7 phases (Figure 1). Step 1 was drafting a literature-informed inventory with 155 quality indicators and 5 sections, entitled the “Faculty Development Program Quality Inventory (FDPQMI). This represented Draft 1 of what would later become the Faculty Development Program Framework (FDPF).” The questionnaire was newly developed for this study and had not undergone prior formal validation; in subsequent phases, it was pilot-tested with faculty development participants at 2 national medical education conferences.

Figure 1.

The Faculty Development Program Framework (FDPF) development process.

Step 2. Next, Draft 1 of the FDPQMI was shared with expert faculty development peers at the Southern Group on Education Affairs (SGEA) in PDF format. These discussions revealed the importance of faculty developers to advancing change in their institutional ecosystems and highlighted the extreme variance in full-time equivalent staff and resources devoted to faculty development among institutions. Based on their feedback, the framework was distilled into a short form (Short Form Edition #1) and presented as a poster at the 2022 IAMSE conference, entitled “30 Quality Indicators of Faculty Development Programs.” During this period, the research team produced Draft 2 of the FDPQMI.

Step 3. Next, researchers conducted 3 rounds of expert focus groups via video conference to refine the Draft 2 inventory sections, language, and scope. These participants (n = 11) were recruited via the Dr ED listserv. Participants included faculty developers, survey experts, and medical education leaders from US medical schools. Any focus group subjects who responded to the invitation and attended the focus group sessions were included in the study. At the outset of each focus group session, participants provided verbal consent for recording and anonymized transcription. The IRB waived the requirement for written consent. Recordings were transcribed, and transcripts were analyzed using MAXQDA by researcher LM according to predefined (a priori) themes aligned with the study research questions. Focus group data were reviewed by the entire team. Following this phase, researchers worked on revising the rating scale and kept a log of requested changes. Researcher SD revised the short-form (Edition 2) into a Qualtrics online survey incorporating a conventional 5-point Likert scale. Feedback from these sessions informed revision of the longer inventory toward a framework format instead of a survey instrument with a rating scale.

Qualitative Analysis. The research team followed the guidelines suggested in Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research.²⁴ Several strategies common to consensus-oriented qualitative inquiry were also used. Data from focus groups, interviews, and pilot surveys were triangulated to compare insights across methods and participant groups. The team maintained an audit trail documenting iterative revisions to the framework across study phases. Coding and theme development were conducted through collaborative discussions among the research team to ensure interpretive consistency and reduce individual bias. Disagreements in interpretation were resolved through discussion among the research team until consensus was reached. Additional information about the focus group methodology is provided in Supplemental Tables 1 and 2.

Step 4. In 2023, Pilot I of the Short Form (Edition 2) with 33 quality indicators was administered to attendees of the Generalists in Medical Education Conference (n = 22). Participants were faculty developers and deans from a variety of medical and health professions schools. Findings from this pilot informed further refinements of the short form, including revision and removal of selected indicators based on participant feedback.

Step 5. In 2024, researchers conducted Pilot II of the short form edition #3 (quality indicators = 27). Researcher LM presented the project at a training workshop at the AACOM conference, followed by administration of the short-form survey (n = 33). This conference was selected because as it is a national venue attended by faculty development leaders and medical education administrators, as well as the authorship team, making it an appropriate setting for pilot testing the framework. The session audience included faculty developers and administrators from osteopathic medical schools.

Step 6. The sixth phase included interviewing 2 leaders in medical education organizations to obtain guidance on how to develop the project further. These interviews were conducted via video conference using a semi-structured discussion about the draft framework, and informed consent procedures were conducted in the same manner as the focus groups. One interviewee had experience developing the Clinician Educator Milestones project, and another was interested in developing a faculty development course based on the quality indicators.

Step 7. In the final phase, the team refined the longer framework as a checklist (Draft 3) with 130 measures, through a process of researcher team review.

Statistical Analysis. Survey data from Pilots I and II were analyzed quantitatively to provide context for participants’ self-reported agreement with faculty development program quality indicators. IBM SPSS Statistics was used to analyze descriptive results for quantitative ratings. Given this study's design focused on refining the framework rather than conducting hypothesis testing, no inferential statistics were employed. Slightly different versions of the short-form instrument were used in Pilots I and II. Where items were comparable across pilots, Table 1 illustrates patterns in agreement levels for the existence of framework characteristics. These quantitative findings were interpreted alongside focus group and interview data as one of several inputs informing the iterative revision of our framework.

Table 1.

Candidate Items Rated to Derive 27 Final Quality Indicators.

Scale: 1 = Strongly Disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Neutral; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly Agree	Pilot I Mean Rating (n = 22)	Pilot II Mean Rating (n = 33)
I. Resources
1. Our institution can describe the faculty development program and key personnel.	3.82	4.09
2. Our institution supplies the faculty development department with a sufficient annual budget. (V2)	3.36	3.27
3. Our institution provides faculty developers with sufficient staff support, full or part time. (V2)	3.27	2.73
4. Our institution provides sufficient academic technology support. (V2)	3.64	3.39
5. Our institution provides sufficient support for instructional design. (V2)	3.77	3.06
6. Our institution provides sufficient library support. (V2)	4.45	4.18
7. Our institution provides sufficient leadership support. (V2)	3.77	3.45
II. Culture (of Medical Education)
1. Faculty developers influence the education vision for our institution.	3.14	3.45
2. Our institution supports faculty developers in improving the curriculum.	2.91	3.30
3. Faculty Development provides input regarding our institution's strategic plan.	2.91	Deleted
4. Our institution seeks FD input for curricular alignment to medical education national standards.	3.10	Deleted
5. Our institution supports a culture that values the science of teaching and learning. (V2)	3.33	3.70
6. Our institution supports a culture of learning and respect for Faculty Development.	3.38	3.42
7. Our institution supports the scholarship of teaching and learning to accelerate education innovation.	3.67	3.39
8. Our institution engages faculty developers as change agents.	3.24	3.09
9. Our institution promotes a systems view of education.	3.30	3.03
III. Activities (Faculty Development Offerings)
1. Our institution provides professional development on traditional topics germane to teaching, learning theory, assessment, clinical teaching, and medical practice.	4.20	4.03
2. Our institution provides professional development on emerging topics such as DEI, professionalism, population health and well-being, technology, AI, and data science.	3.57	Combined
3. Our College of Medicine documents a list of faculty development programs.	3.90	4.27
4. Our institution provides a centralized training hub (ie, teaching center).	3.37	3.67
5. Our institution provides at least one faculty development seminar or conference annually to calibrate educators.	3.20	4.24
6. Our institution provides assistance for faculty research and publication.	3.65	3.66
7. Our institution provides training and/or support for helping faculty succeed in academia.	3.75	3.73
8. Our institution supports participation in medical education conferences.	4.10	3.82
9. Our institution supports Faculty Development for improving the clinical education program.	3.89	3.85
10. Our institution supports a consistent plan for training preceptors.	2.58	2.97
IV. Outcome Variables
1. Our institution's teaching standards align with the Faculty Development plan.	2.48	2.94
2. Our institution provides Faculty Development with meaningful program data that informs them about the teaching or research skills of faculty. (V2)	2.71	2.58
V. Evaluation
1. Our Faculty Development program is informed by a needs assessment that occurs on at least an annual basis.	3.05	3.42
2. There is a systematic evaluation of our Faculty Development program.	2.76	3.03

Note: 2 items were deleted and 2 combined during refinement.

Results

Results are presented based on insights gained from: (1) Focus Groups, (2) Interviews, (3) Surveys, and address the 3 research questions.

RQ1. What are the consensus quality indicators of undergraduate medical education (UME) faculty development programs, as described by expert faculty developers and other stakeholders?

Consensus quality indicators of UME faculty development programs are codified in our Faculty Development Program Framework (Phase 7) (see Supplemental Appendix I). This framework provides a comprehensive structure allowing stakeholders to tailor it to their unique needs, and at varying levels of aggregation. One hundred thirty (130) program descriptors are organized into 27 quality indicators. These 27 indicators constitute the concise short-form inventory, while the full framework includes 130 detailed checklist criteria (measures) further categorized into 5 major domains (see Figure 2):

Resources: Personnel, budget, academic technology support, and so on needed for faculty development.

Culture: How faculty developers influence the COM's learning culture.

Activities: The training activities provided for faculty development by internal and external trainers.

Outcomes: The standards, resources, and data required to establish faculty development outcomes.

Program Evaluation: The processes and steps toward the faculty development program.

Figure 2.

Framework structure.

During Phases 2 and 3 of the project, focus group participants provided detailed guidance on areas needing clarification leading to the final draft of the FDPF (Supplemental Table 3). Participants emphasized the necessity of adding an introductory section that clearly states the instrument's purpose, scope, and intended audience. This section was subsequently added to the Framework. Participants also asked that the final edition of the framework include an explicit definition of faculty development. In response, we incorporated Steinert et al's¹³ definition, which describes faculty development as “all activities health professionals pursue to improve their knowledge, skills, and behaviors as teachers and educators, leaders and managers, and researchers and scholars in both individual and group settings.” Participants further noted the need to operationalize the term faculty. By consensus, for the purpose of this framework, faculty include full-time and part-time instructional staff, residential faculty, and clinical preceptors. To support consistent interpretation, reviewers advised specifying that respondents should answer the instrument as individuals, reflecting their own experiences. They also identified the need to clarify that the framework primarily evaluates faculty development related to the preclinical curriculum. Finally, they agreed that replacing references to “medical school” with “health professions education” and substituting “institution” for “COM” to enhance applicability across diverse educational settings. All these recommendations were incorporated into the revised draft of the instrument to improve clarity, usability, and alignment with expert feedback.

Focus group participants also offered concise recommendations to strengthen key sections of the framework. For the Resources section, they suggested shortening the content, relocating it to the end of the instrument, and updating items to reflect the growing use of educational technology tools.

Focus group participants provided detailed guidance on areas needing clarification, leading to the final draft of the FDPF (Supplemental Table 3). They mainly provided feedback in 5 a priori themes: (1) Overall Usefulness, (2) Navigating the Sections of the Instrument, (3) Content of the Instrument, (4) The Scale and Utility of a Scorable Instrument, and (5) Possible Uses of the Framework.

1. Overall Usefulness of the Inventory. In terms of overall reactions to the first draft, participants expressed appreciation for the comprehensive nature of the inventory and consistently affirmed its value as a robust framework. Several reviewers described it as an essential reference for faculty developers and institutional leaders, with one participant noting that it could serve as “a handbook for new administrators and new leaders … to understand the heft of faculty development and what it does.” Building on this positive reception, participants also offered practical suggestions to enhance usability. While reviewers agreed that the full 155-item framework was appropriate as a comprehensive reference, many noted that it was too lengthy to function effectively as a survey instrument and recommended developing a shortened version for routine data collection.

2. Navigating the Sections of the Instrument. As described earlier, participants emphasized the necessity of adding an introductory section that clearly states the instrument's purpose, scope, and intended audience. This section was subsequently added to the Framework. Participants also suggested placing demographic questions at the end of any survey adaptation to reduce respondent burden and allowing respondents to select multiple institution types to better reflect the diversity of health professions education settings. All these recommendations were incorporated into the revised draft of the instrument to improve clarity, usability, and alignment with expert feedback.

3. Framework Content. Focus group participants also offered concise recommendations to strengthen key sections of the framework. For the Resources section, they suggested shortening the content, relocating it to the end of the instrument, and updating items to reflect the growing use of educational technology tools: “What I didn’t see quite as clearly is support for technology … when I think of where medical education and things are going now, technology is huge.”

In the Culture section, participants recommended adding rewards or incentives for faculty participation in faculty development. For example, one participant said, “I didn’t see that anywhere … recognizing faculty who enrolled or completed a program … you want to celebrate them because then … they become promoters for the others.”

Participants also requested a revision on Item 9D to clarify the role of faculty developers on key committees; they also noted areas of redundancy that required streamlining. Feedback on the Activities section highlighted the need for a more coherent structure, and in response, the research team consolidated overlapping elements and organized the faculty development offerings into twenty content areas.

RQ2: What do faculty development experts suggest about developing the framework as a scorable inventory with 130 indicators?

During Phase Focus Groups 1 to 3, participants discussed whether the FDPF should be presented as a scorable survey or as a broader reference framework. Several faculty developers emphasized that the FDPF is best positioned as a formative quality-improvement resource, rather than a summative evaluation tool or a survey instrument. As one participant asked, “Do you think that a survey that was 30 items long might be more valuable? And then the framework can be as long as it needs to be because it’ll be in a handbook or something?” Approximately one-third of the focus group participants felt the longer framework instrument had merit in a scorable version. Others cautioned that scoring could inadvertently introduce judgment or pressure. One participant expressed concern that using the FDPF as a scored inventory could make institutions feel “judged or penalized” for not meeting every criterion, noting that many items may not be relevant to all schools. They emphasized that the FDPF should function as a nonjudgmental inventory, not a mechanism for rating or ranking programs.

To help inform the potential utility of the framework as a shorter, nonjudgmental, formative scorable instrument, the research team piloted 2 shortened editions of the inventory as rating instruments at medical education conferences. During Phase 4, Pilot I was administered during the 2023 Generalists in Medical Education Conference in Seattle (N = 22) and Pilot II at the 2024 American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine Educating Leaders Conference in Kansas City (N = 33). Survey respondents were faculty developers, administrators, and other medical education experts. Researchers explained the need for an inventory, then invited participants to self-assess the existence of framework characteristics. The online survey, which included informed consent, was administered in real-time using a QR code. These electronic surveys included demographics and 27 to 30 ordinal Likert scale items. These pilot surveys evaluated shortened indicator inventories rather than the full 130-measure framework.

For Pilot I (N = 22), most respondents identified their Institution Type as Undergraduate Medical Education (68.2%) or Health Sciences or Health Professions (27.3%). In Pilot II, this question was modified to allow respondents to “check all that apply” (N = 33), with 93.9% selecting Undergraduate Medical Education, 57.6% selecting Graduate Medical Education, and 36.4% selecting Health Sciences or Health Professions.

When asked to describe their primary role, Pilot I respondents (single selection) included 54.5% Faculty Developer, 9.1% Faculty Member, 18.2% Leadership, and 18.2% Other. The Pilot II version allowed multiple selections, with 72.7% selecting Faculty Developer, 54.5% selecting Leadership, and 51.5% selecting Faculty Member. Most respondents (90.9%) identified their undergraduate medical education institution as allopathic (MD).

During Phase 4, Pilot II (N = 33), 63.6% reported being a designated official for their faculty development program. Respondents were from MD (57.6%) and DO (33.3%) institutions. Table 1 shows mean agreement levels for each of the 2 pilot sessions in which the framework was administered as a rating instrument. See Table 1, Candidate Items Rated to Derive 27 Final Quality Indicators.

Participants reported the lowest levels of agreement with the following quality indicators: (a) our institution provides meaningful data to the faculty development team to inform them about teaching ( m = 2.65/5.00); (b) our institution's teaching standards align with the faculty development plan ( m = 2.71); (c) our institution supports a consistent plan for training preceptors ( m = 2.78); (d) there is a systematic evaluation of our faculty development program ( m = 2.90); and (e) our institution provides sufficient support for instructional design ( m = 3.00). These lower ratings illustrate the potential utility of the framework as a tool for identifying how faculty development programs might be developed further, were resources for expansion made available. Again, however, although the framework can certainly be used to construct rating instruments tailored to a particular institution, there is no single instrument that will necessarily satisfy the needs of all medical schools.

RQ3. What are potential uses for a faculty development quality measures framework? Over the course of the focus groups and leader interviews, the framework was identified as valuable for several purposes: 1) Preparation for accreditation; 2) Institutional self-study or evaluation; 3) Continuous quality improvement; 4) Training new faculty developers; 5) Helping faculty developers advocate for resources; and 6) Raising awareness of faculty developers as change agents. (See Supplemental Table 3.) For example, one focus group participant commented:

“There is minimal research out there on the efficacy of faculty development in medical education. When I first started, something like this would have been very beneficial in planning, growing, and developing a new program—it would have helped me see what other schools were doing.”

During Phase 4, at the 2023 Generalists in Medical Education Conference, a workshop was conducted during which participants provided feedback on a shortened inventory, entitled “30 Quality Indicators of Faculty Development Programs” (Provided in Table 1). Their insights included (1) faculty developers often fulfill multiple roles, siloed in disparate departments throughout large institutions; (2) faculty development personnel, funding structures, and institutional priorities vary across universities, medical schools, and departments, all of which influence how programs are designed and implemented. Participants also provided input on demographics for the inventory and suggested categorizing faculty development activities into 20 content areas. Themes that surfaced from this focus group are provided in Supplemental Table 4.

Phase 6: Interviews with Leader Experts. The research team shared the FDPF framework and conducted interviews via video conference with leader-level experts. One was an expert on the Clinician Educator Milestones project, and another was a member of the leadership team of a national medical education organization. These interviews were documented as researcher memos. Leaders stated they found potential value in the framework, and suggested next steps, such as contacting the Clinician Educator Milestones project, and the AAMC, IAMSE, COCA: “Keep doing what you are doing. Present it at IAMSE. That's a good forum.” One of the leader experts wondered whether this framework could be used as a basis for a faculty development series and requested such a proposal. Feedback from these interviews informed refinement of the framework's intended use and future development.

Discussion

Through this project, we engaged in extensive dialogue about program quality indicators with the medical education faculty development community. Consistent with prior studies, these conversations revealed the complexity and diversity of faculty development programs and underscored a recurring need for clear implementation strategies, formal communication systems, and the need to evaluate programs.²⁵ These insights served as a general needs assessment for medical education faculty development directors, provided rich context, and informed the results of our research questions.

RQ1. Consensus Quality Indicators. The FDPF addresses the first research question by organizing 130 measures into a checklist format (Supplemental Appendix I). Pilot survey findings revealed lower agreement on indicators related to alignment with institutional teaching standards, access to teaching performance metrics, preceptor training, and instructional design support. These lower ratings likely reflect structural and resource constraints common in medical schools, where faculty development programs may operate with limited staffing, decentralized authority, and incomplete access to educational performance data. The FDPF helps make these gaps visible and offers a structured way for institutions to prioritize development efforts and advocate for resources.

RQ2. Potential Uses of the FDPF. Focus group feedback identified multiple ways the framework could support institutional practice:

As a guide to faculty developers, especially new or inexperienced faculty developers.

As an institutional self-study instrument for continuous quality improvement.

As a tool for preparing for an accreditation site visit. The FDPF domains were mapped to relevant accreditation standards (COCA and LCME); a crosswalk is available in Supplemental Table 5.

As a data collection tool used to find supporting evidence useful for advocating for faculty development resources.

As a potential instrument for national benchmarking when used in a scorable format.

As a framework for increasing faculty developer agency. By providing a structured, institution-level framework, the FDPF enables faculty developers to identify gaps, align programs with institutional priorities, and advocate more effectively for resources and organizational change.

RQ3. Considerations for a Scorable Inventory. Approximately one-third of focus group participants felt a scorable version of the longer framework could be valuable, and participants with experience in survey development recommended additional refinement of such a tool. Others, however, expressed concern that a scoring system could lead to misinterpretation or unintended judgment, noting that institutions vary widely in structure and resources. These participants preferred a formative checklist for internal self-study rather than a summative scoring mechanism. Together, these perspectives indicate that a scorable inventory may be feasible in the future but will require careful design, validation, and broad stakeholder input.

Limitations. This study involved FD leaders from 3 US medical schools and 2 national conferences. The sample size was determined pragmatically rather than through a priori calculations, which limits generalizability. The scope was intentionally limited as part of a pilot initiative to test the feasibility and utility of the new framework. Broader representation, including participants from international venues such as AMEE or the International Conference on Faculty Development in the Health Professions, as well as leaders supporting both UME and GME, remains a possible next step.

We acknowledge that many of the current checklist items emphasize inputs and processes rather than outcomes. This emphasis was intentional for this early pilot version, given the need to establish consensus around foundational program structures before evaluating impact. Nonetheless, several outcome-oriented indicators are included in the FDPF, such as teaching standards, performance metrics, and program evaluation at Kirkpatrick Levels 3-4. Future iterations of the framework will expand this dimension further, with additional emphasis on indicators of impact at the learner, faculty, and institutional levels. Further validation through broader national sampling and psychometric analysis will be necessary to establish the framework's reliability and generalizability. In this way, the FDPF can evolve to balance both the foundational conditions for high-quality faculty development and the demonstrable outcomes that stakeholders increasingly seek.

The survey instruments used in this study were not based on validated instruments. While the study engaged FD leaders through focus groups, interviews, and pilot surveys, these methods were not designed to yield definitive consensus or validation. Instead, they provided rich expert feedback that shaped successive iterations of the inventory. The FDPF should therefore be understood as a developmental framework at an early stage, with future work required to establish consensus, reliability, and validation. In particular, researchers plan to conduct future studies employing factor analysis to explore the framework's construct validity.

Conclusion

After 2 earlier iterations, the final edition of the FDPF emerged as a robust, structured framework designed to guide and organize faculty development efforts. Its purpose is to support program creation, refinement, and quality improvement, not to function as a comparative ranking tool or to imply that institutions must meet every criterion. Rather than requiring universal adoption of all 130 items, the FDPF is intentionally flexible, allowing institutions to identify and use the indicators most relevant to their context, needs, and culture. Referring to the FDPF as an “instrument” would therefore be misleading, as it does not prescribe compliance with each criterion, nor is it intended to serve as a definitive, summative evaluation measure. Instead, it provides a comprehensive checklist or menu of evidence-informed elements from which institutions can selectively draw to strengthen their faculty development programs.

Future Directions. Future development of the FDPF will focus on 3 areas identified through this pilot initiative and reinforced by participant feedback. First, validation efforts might include broader national sampling, psychometric testing of the short form, and exploration of construct validity for the full 130-item framework. Second, dissemination and implementation studies could examine how institutions adopt and apply the framework across diverse organizational contexts, including its use in accreditation preparation, self-study processes, and resource advocacy. The third area could be further refinement of outcome-oriented indicators. These steps will allow the FDPF to evolve from an early-stage developmental framework into a usable, evidence-based tool for guiding faculty development programs.

Beyond serving as a framework for program evaluation and planning, focus group and interview participants identified several practical ways in which institutions might apply the FDPF. These included designing new faculty development programs, clarifying institutional priorities, informing budget planning and resource allocation, guiding development of information systems for tracking faculty development activities, supporting internal evaluation or research, and structuring longitudinal faculty development initiatives. These examples illustrate the immediate functional utility of the framework across a range of institutional contexts.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-mde-10.1177_23821205261439617 - Supplemental material for The Development of a Faculty Development Program Framework for Medical Education

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-mde-10.1177_23821205261439617 for The Development of a Faculty Development Program Framework for Medical Education by Lise McCoy, Sebastian R. Diaz and S. Dennis Baker in Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-2-mde-10.1177_23821205261439617 - Supplemental material for The Development of a Faculty Development Program Framework for Medical Education

Supplemental material, sj-docx-2-mde-10.1177_23821205261439617 for The Development of a Faculty Development Program Framework for Medical Education by Lise McCoy, Sebastian R. Diaz and S. Dennis Baker in Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-3-mde-10.1177_23821205261439617 - Supplemental material for The Development of a Faculty Development Program Framework for Medical Education

Supplemental material, sj-docx-3-mde-10.1177_23821205261439617 for The Development of a Faculty Development Program Framework for Medical Education by Lise McCoy, Sebastian R. Diaz and S. Dennis Baker in Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development

Supplemental Material

sj-doc-4-mde-10.1177_23821205261439617 - Supplemental material for The Development of a Faculty Development Program Framework for Medical Education

Supplemental material, sj-doc-4-mde-10.1177_23821205261439617 for The Development of a Faculty Development Program Framework for Medical Education by Lise McCoy, Sebastian R. Diaz and S. Dennis Baker in Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Amy Hall, EdD, for her early work on designing the first draft of the framework. ChatGPT 5.2 (OpenAI, San Francisco, CA) and Microsoft Copilot.ai were used to assist with editing for clarity and grammar. The authors reviewed and approved all content and take full responsibility for the final manuscript.

ORCID iDs

Lise McCoy

S. Dennis Baker

Ethical Approval

NYITCOM Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval (protocol #BHS1708), 12.13.21.

Author Contributions

Author LM co-developed the framework, organized the study, conducted focus groups, performed qualitative analysis, and drafted the manuscript. Author SD co-developed the framework, peer-reviewed the qualitative analyses, revised the 30 indicators into an agreement scale, conducted the statistical analysis, and contributed substantially to the manuscript. Author SB co-developed the framework, peer-reviewed the qualitative analyses, and contributed substantially to the clinical education components.

Funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM Grant # G23-03).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Previous Presentations

30 Quality Indicators of Medical Education Faculty Development Programs. IAMSE Conference. Poster. June 13, 2023. Lise McCoy EdD, Dennis Baker PhD, Sebastian Diaz PhD, and Amy Hall EdD.

Quality Indicators of UME Faculty Development Programs. Workshop. The Generalists in Medical Education, 11.4.23. Lise McCoy.

A Systems Approach to Dynamic Faculty Development Programs in Undergraduate Medical Education. Workshop. AACOM Educating Leaders. 4.17.24. Lise McCoy, Sebastian Diaz, and Dennis Baker.

Data

Data are from focus groups, interviews, and surveys conducted by researchers. The datasets generated and analyzed during this study consist of transcripts and narrative comments that contain identifiable perspectives of faculty development professionals. In accordance with IRB protocols and to protect participant confidentiality, these data cannot be shared.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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Supplementary Material

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