Evaluating Dental Faculty Performance: Perceptions of Departmental Chairpersons

Abstract

In this study 388 departmental chairpersons in 61 United States and Canadian Dental Schools ranked, in decreasing order of importance, 12 performance criteria and then ranked the same 12 criteria as they perceived faculty would rank them. Agreement between the chairpersons' global rankings gave a positive rho of .95. Ranking agreement across each of 11 clinical departments ranged from .84 to .98. Chairpersons perceived that faculty would rank classroom, clinical, and laboratory teaching as number one and research and/or creative activity (independent of publication) as number two. This was in exact agreement with the chairpersons' personal ranking of these two criteria. Implications of the findings were discussed with respect to the increasing emphasis placed on research for dental faculty within the university.