research digest

Brief Research Highlights in Continuing Education and Knowledge Translation

Research Question: Are on-line courses effective? Is interactivity important?

Articles:

1.      Weir E, Stieb DM, Abelsohn A, Mak M, Kosatsky T. Design, delivery and evaluation of an email-based Continuing Professional Development course on outdoor air pollution and health. Medical Teacher 2004;26:166-173.

2.      Curran V, Kirby F, Parsons E, Lockyer J.  Short Report: Satisfaction with on-line CME. Evaluation of the RuralMDcme website. Can Fam Phys 2004;50:271-274. Full-text

Summary:  Weir et al. evaluated a case-based moderated e-mail small group discussion course with an online toolbox of resources, conducted over four weeks, on the health effects of outdoor air pollution. Twenty-seven people registered for the course, 16 participants completed a course evaluation and post-test and 20 participants completed a reflective activity three months after course completion. Curran et al. evaluated physicians’ satisfaction with four on-line CME courses with a mean of eight participants; 37 registrants completed evaluation questionnaires, and 15 of them participated in semi-structured telephone interviews. Based on a post-test, participants in the former study had very good knowledge in some areas but not others; all participants either agreed or strongly agreed that their knowledge had increased, and the self reflective activity revealed an impact on clinical practice. In a self-completed questionnaire, participants in the later study reported that the instruction received was interesting and motivating, site design was attractive with interactive features, and they were able to learn at their own pace and juggle learning time with work and home responsibilities. Technological problems occurred in both studies. A major challenge identified by Weir et al. was the time required to read the e-mails and the difficulties maintaining threads between them. They recommend “sequential delivery of small bits of information over short intervals, based on one case, tied to concrete learning objectives and the completion of specific self-directed tasks”; Curran et al. emphasize the importance of increasing interaction between facilitators and participants and “packaging of material into bite-size pieces”. 

Implications:

§         Future efforts should focus on optimizing interactivity in on-line courses to promote communication between learners and facilitators or fellow learners.

§         Need to find ideal number of participants that would optimize interactivity with fellow learners and facilitators, consider issue of people reluctant to interact, and prevent e-mail overload.  

Further reading: Harris JM Jr, Novalis-Marine C, Harris RB. Women physicians are early adopters of on-line continuing medical education. J Contin Educ Health Prof. 2003 Fall;23(4):221-8. PubMed Abstract

Search the RDRB (Research & Development Resource Base): For more articles search the RDRB - available at no cost online at: http://www.cme.utoronto.ca/search.

Some keywords to use: online CME OR online learning

Do you have a topic for us? Write to Laure Perrier at rdrb.cme@utoronto.ca.

Research Digest is compiled by Joanne Goldman and Laure Perrier of the Knowledge Translation Program at the University of Toronto (www.ktp.utoronto.ca).  Its goals are to highlight and summarize recent publications, stimulate discussion and reading, and generate research in the subject area.