Evaluation of medical school faculty members’ educational performance in Korea in 2022 through analysis of the promotion regulations: a mixed methods study

PURPOSE: To ensure faculty members’ active participation in education in response to growing demand, medical schools should clearly describe educational activities in their promotion regulations. This study analyzed the status of how medical education activities are evaluated in promotion regulations in 2022, in Korea. METHODS: Data were collected from promotion regulations retrieved by searching the websites of 22 medical schools/universities in August 2022. To categorize educational activities and evaluation methods, the Association of American Medical Colleges framework for educational activities was utilized. Correlations between medical schools’ characteristics and the evaluation of medical educational activities were analyzed. RESULTS: We defined 6 categories, including teaching, development of education products, education administration and service, scholarship in education, student affairs, and others, and 20 activities with 57 sub-activities. The average number of included activities was highest in the development of education products category and lowest in the scholarship in education category. The weight adjustment factors of medical educational activities were the characteristics of the target subjects and faculty members, the number of involved faculty members, and the difficulty of activities. Private medical schools tended to have more educational activities in the regulations than public medical schools. The greater the number of faculty members, the greater the number of educational activities in the education administration and service categories. CONCLUSION: Medical schools included various medical education activities and their evaluation methods in promotion regulations in Korea. This study provides basic data for improving the rewarding system for efforts of medical faculty members in education.