The Role of Needs Assessment for Faculty Development Initiatives.

In this study, the authors assessed the need for faculty development among faculty in one dental school by determining their highest priorities in teaching, scholarship, and administrative and leadership skills; the relationships among their knowledge and priorities for additional training; their satisfaction with current faculty development programs and level of participation; their perceptions of mentoring received; and what needs they believed might advance their career. Using survey research methods the findings showed a significant difference between knowledge areas and priorities, that faculty reported needing additional knowledge in teaching and assessment, scholarship, and in leadership skills that might fulfill career advancement. They also reported having had a lack quality mentoring, and low levels of participation in previous faculty development initiative, which they rated as poor to fair. Assessing faculty needs prior to developing a program aimed at fostering professional growth is essential to ensuring the congruence between services and needs. Although dental education is different from general undergraduate education (or graduate education in non-professional fields), the survey method we described might be relevant to other disciplines and venues.Change theorists provide considerable evidence of the reasons why change initiatives tend fail in higher education (Fullan, 1992). Among the reasons are failure to provide a rationale to support the change and insufficient of support for faculty to initiate the change. They advise researchers and practitioners to offer resources and infrastructure support that can ease the transitions and the potential anxiety that result from change processes. When change is specifically directed at curriculum revision, researchers stress the importance of ensuring that the faculty development services, which are provided, are aligned with faculty needs. Rather than assume what faculty needs are, researchers and practitioners are advised to assess faculty members' needs prior to developing a program aimed at fostering professional growth. The goal of this type of assessment is to ensure congruence between services and needs.The aim of faculty development is to impart skills and knowledge that promote growth in regard to institutional and individual vitality, to foster understanding of the science of learning, and to build capacity towards providing state of the art instructional practices. Health sciences education recognizes the important role that faculty development plays in sustaining and vitalizing faculty (Steinert, 2000). To respond to faculty need, a range of activities can be offered including online and on campus courses, and regional and national seminars. As Steinert reminds us, a planned program, grounded by the explicit needs of faculty, is considered to be most effective in strengthening faculty skills for their assigned roles, in improving individuals' knowledge, teaching skills, leadership capacity, and in conducting research.Most schools of professional education are diligent in ensuring students' technical and procedural skills, hut they do not provide training in teaching or in conducting educational research for students who seek to become prospective faculty. Prospective faculties are left relatively unprepared to navigate university cultures or to meet the university's expectations for academic faculty success. This practice raises the following questions: With regard to promoting faculty success, what is the institution's responsibility in ensuring that faculty can and do teach effectively? What is the institution's responsibility in helping faculty develop an educational research trajectory? Further, should the university have a role in training faculty in educational theory and practice? Isn't alignment in developing the components of faculty development programs just as important as it is curriculum revision?Faculty development is certain to be more effective if based on the real or perceived needs of the faculty. …