Administrative Evaluation Completion Is Weakly Associated With Trainee-Rated Teaching Effectiveness: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to determine whether faculty End of Rotation evaluation (EOR-e) completion is associated with trainee-rated teaching performance. Our hypothesis was that timely assessment completion would correlate with stronger teaching performance. DESIGN: We conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study of faculty surgeons assigned ≥5 EOR-e over academic years 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025. Outcomes included EOR-e completion rate, completion-lag time, and trainee-rated teaching effectiveness. Associations were examined using nonparametric analyses and linear and logistic regression models. SETTING: A General Surgery Residency Program within a tertiary care academic hospital. PARTICIPANTS: We reviewed data from faculty surgeons who were assigned at least 5 EOR-e. RESULTS: Our cohort of 120 surgeons was assigned a median of 9 (IQR 6-20) EOR-e, completing a median of 0 (IQR 0-15). Only 25% (30/120) completed all assigned evaluations. Surgeons received a median of 17 (IQR 7-30) resident evaluations and a median teaching score of 4.3 (IQR 4.0-4.6). Faculty completing all EOR-e had higher teaching scores than those who did not (median 4.5 vs 4.3, p < 0.001). Teaching score correlated modestly with EOR-e completion rate (Spearman's ρ = 0.27, p < 0.005) but not with completion-lag time. Controlling for the total number of EOR-e assigned, on multivariable linear regression, neither EOR-e completion number nor EOR-e completion percentage was significantly associated with average teaching score. Greater numbers of assigned EOR-e independently predicted a perfect completion rate. CONCLUSIONS: EOR-e completion reflects clustered participation in creating the artifacts of summative evaluation among a small subset of faculty. Teaching scores were modestly associated with completion, but this relationship was incomplete, indicating that evaluation engagement and teaching quality are related but distinct constructs. Using assessment behavior as a proxy for teaching effectiveness risks conflating structural engagement with pedagogical excellence and should be used with caution in faculty assessment.