Exploring community faculty members' engagement in educational scholarship.

OBJECTIVE: To obtain a deeper understanding of community faculty members' perceptions about engagement in educational scholarship.
DESIGN: One-on-one semistructured interviews that were audiorecorded, transcribed verbatim, and subsequently analyzed.
SETTING: Toronto, Ont. PARTICIPANTS: Purposive, theoretical sample of 8 physician faculty members at the University of Toronto.
METHODS: Interview transcripts were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Emergent themes were identified by the research team through a process of constant comparative analysis. MAIN
FINDINGS: Community faculty members identified themselves professionally as clinicians and teachers, and they did not see themselves as scholars in medical education. While they believed that educational scholarship was important for the field more broadly, they did not see the personal or professional value of being involved. This attitude stemmed from the perception that there was not a direct link between scholarly activity and improvement in teaching or patient care. Instead, participants viewed scholarly activity as a mode of career advancement rather than practice improvement. Furthermore, they equated educational scholarship with clinical research, thereby excluding themselves from participation in scholarly activities.
CONCLUSION: When developing strategies to engage community faculty members in educational scholarship, it is important to consider the implications of members' professional identity, as well as implicit models of scholarship. To expand the concept of educational scholarship beyond research activities, additional scholarly contributions need to be supported, recognized, and valued. Copyright© the College of Family Physicians of Canada.