Preferences of the medical faculty members for electronic faculty development programs (e-FDP): a qualitative study

INTRODUCTION: Medical faculties are responsible for the training and development of future physicians. Therefore, they must learn the teaching methods. Considering their extensive roles, adult learning theory, and technological developments, the best solution is e-learning. This study extracted the views and preferences of clinical faculties about the electronic faculty development programs. METHODS: Clinical faculty members and medical education and e-learning specialists from medical universities in Iran participated in this qualitative content analysis study during 2017–2018. Data were collected with purposive sampling method by 18 semi-structured interviews and 2 focus groups with 11 participants. The data were analyzed using the conventional qualitative content analysis method. Validity and accuracy of data were provided on the basis of Guba and Lincoln criteria. RESULTS: Five categories including “Technology infrastructure” (Presentation, Platform, E-Learning environment), “learner” (Features, Motivation), ”Program management” (Blending, Interaction), “content” (Design, Application, Organization), and “evaluation” (Learner assessment, Program evaluation) were extracted. CONCLUSION: Faculty members prefer to attend e-learning courses that focus on individualization, blended learning, and mobile learning. The best solution is to use the microlearning approach, that is, short pieces of content focusing on a learning goal that can be presented by all electronic devices in the form of any kind of media, and is in fact the learning fingerfood.