Including Resident Photographs on Electronic Evaluations: Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?

Background: Trends toward electronic course evaluation make it possible to personalize evaluations in many ways, such as including resident photographs. The purpose of the present project was to explore the impact of adding photos to electronic evaluations of residents by faculty. Description: T tests were used to examine faculty responses to determine if resident outcomes were affected by the inclusion/exclusion of photographs from the perspective of the resident receiving the evaluation and the faculty giving the evaluation. A qualitative analysis of comments was performed. Evaluation: Almost no significant differences were found on the level of resident or faculty (all but one p .05) Qualitative analysis of the comments did reveal common themes, but no significant differences were apparent between groups with/without photographs (all ps .05). Conclusion: Including or excluding photographs on evaluation forms did not impact resident outcomes. Future study should explore the effect of elapsed completion time on resident evaluation.