Associations between teaching effectiveness scores and characteristics of presentations in hospital medicine continuing education

• Published in: Journal of hospital medicine Vol. 10; no. 9; pp. 569 - 573
• Main Authors: Ratelle, John T., Wittich, Christopher M., Yu, Roger C., Newman, James S., Jenkins, Sarah M., Beckman, Thomas J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2015; Frontline Medical Communications
• Subjects: Adult; Aged; Audiences; Classroom response systems; Cross-Sectional Studies; Education, Medical, Continuing; Female; Hospital Medicine - education; Humans; Male; Medicine; Middle Aged; Surveys and Questionnaires; Teacher evaluations; Teaching - methods; Time Factors; Young Adult
• ISSN: 1553-5592; 1553-5606
• DOI: 10.1002/jhm.2391

BACKGROUND There is little research regarding characteristics of effective continuing medical education (CME) presentations in hospital medicine (HM). Therefore, we sought to identify associations between validated CME teaching effectiveness scores and characteristics of CME presentations in the field of HM. DESIGN/SETTING This was a cross‐sectional study of participants and didactic presentations from a national HM CME course in 2014. MEASUREMENTS Participants provided CME teaching effectiveness (CMETE) ratings using an instrument with known validity evidence. Overall CMETE scores (5‐point scale: 1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree) were averaged for each presentation, and associations between scores and presentation characteristics were determined using the Kruskal‐Wallis test. The threshold for statistical significance was set at P < 0.05. RESULTS A total of 277 out of 368 participants (75.3%) completed evaluations for the 32 presentations. CMETE scores (mean [standard deviation]) were significantly associated with the use of audience response (4.64 [0.16]) versus no audience response (4.49 [0.16]; P = 0.01), longer presentations (≥30 minutes: 4.67 [0.13] vs <30 minutes: 4.51 [0.18]; P = 0.02), and larger number of slides (≥50: 4.66 [0.17] vs <50: 4.55 [0.17]; P = 0.04). There were no significant associations between CMETE scores and use of clinical cases, defined goals, or summary slides. CONCLUSIONS To our knowledge, this is the first study regarding associations between validated teaching effectiveness scores and characteristics of effective CME presentations in HM. Our findings, which support previous research in other fields, indicate that CME presentations may be improved by increasing interactivity through the use of audience response systems and allowing longer presentations. Journal of Hospital Medicine 2015;10:569–573. © 2015 Society of Hospital Medicine