Background and objectives: Preceptors in family medicine residencies need feedback to improve. When we found no validated, behavior-based tool to assess the outpatient precepting of family medicine residents, we sought to fill this gap by developing and initially validating the Mayo Outpatient Precepting Evaluation Tool (MOPET).
Methods: To develop the MOPET, we applied the Stanford Faculty Development Program (SFDP) theoretical framework for education, more recent work on peer review of medical teaching, and expert review of items. The residency behavioral scientist and a volunteer physician independently completed the MOPET while co-observing a precepting physician during continuity clinic sessions (N=20). We assessed the tool's validity via interrater reliability and cross-validation with the SFDP-26.
Results: The tool demonstrated high interrater reliability for the following effective teaching behaviors: (a) allowing the resident to present without interrupting, (b) encouraging the formulation of a goal, (c) checking in on the resident's goal, (d) using multimodal teaching aids, (e) asking to discuss the differential diagnosis, (f) asking to discuss alternative management, (g) encouraging the resident to pursue literature and/or other resources, and (h) reinforcing self-directed learning. The MOPET measures strongly correlated with most items from the SFDP-26, indicating good cross-validity.
Conclusions: The MOPET is a theoretically sound, behavior-based, reliable, and initially validated tool for peer review of outpatient family medicine resident teaching. This tool can support faculty development in outpatient clinical learning environments.