The Effect of Faculty Development Program on Students’ Success: A concurrent mixed method Study

Background: Faculty Development Programs (FDPs) are the pillars of teaching and learning in any institution. FDPs play crucial role in advancing quality teaching and learning for successful students’ outcome in medical education. FDPs can indirectly improve students’ academic performance and learning experiences through faculty enhancement of pedagogical, assessment, and mentoring skills.Objective: To evaluate the effect of a faculty development program on students’ academic success and learning experiences.Methods: A Concurrent mixed, methods research was done at the University of Lahore from August 2024 to January 2025 after approval by the Ethical Review Committee (ERC/40/24/07). A self-administered, validated questionnaire was distributed among second, third, and fourth, year MBBS students (n = 400). Quantitative data were analyzed on SPSS version 24. Six FGDs were done with purposively selected high, and low, achieving students. Qualitative data were analyzed thematically.Results: Over 70% of students agreed that FDP, led initiatives were beneficial for clarity of learning, enhancing teaching styles and assessment feedback. The mean (± SD) scores across categories of teaching and assessment were between 3.6 (± 0.75) and 4.1(± 0.66) on the five, point Likert scale. Only 54.8% of students believed mentoring caused an improvement. Key themes from free text responses included improvement in teaching style, feedback from assessment and student confidence; whereas there were difficulties around consistency of mentoring and cognitive load.Conclusion: Faculty development programs positively influence student learning experiences and perceived academic success. Robust mentoring systems and clinical application of improved teaching styles could be encouraged to further achieve heightened student satisfaction.