Attitudes towards teaching in Hatyai Hospital: a 2-year follow-up study

Abstract

To enhance the quality of medical teaching, it is important to appreciate the existing attitudes of teachers and also the changes in their attitudes by time and experience. Our aim was to compare attitudes towards teaching and teacher training before and after undergraduate medical education had started at Hatyai Hospital (Thailand) in April 2001 under the collaborative project to increase production of rural doctors. We used a questionnaire assessing attitudes to teaching and teacher training developed by Finucane (1994) to survey our staff in January 2001 and February 2003 respectively. The responses showed significant differences in two attitudinal statements. There was increased agreement with "I find teaching as satisfying as other activities" (X1= 4.0, S.D. = 1.4, X2 = 4.9, S.D.=1.5, p = .01, Mann-Whitney U test) and reduced agreement with "Sufficient priority is given to teaching in this hospital" (X1= 4.4, S.D.= 1.2, X2 = 3.7, S.D.= 1.2, p = .02). These differences might be attributed to the fact that physicians had more confidence in teaching after one year experience but the hospital needed to consider "teaching role" as one of its important missions as well.

Keywords

• attitudes towards teaching
• faculty development