Table 4 Perceived Barriers for Using Active Learning in Continuing Medical Education Units in the U.S. and Canada During 2019 Using Descriptive Statistics and Cronbach’s alpha from Survey Questions
From: Making it stick: use of active learning strategies in continuing medical education
| Barriers to Active Learning | Strongly Agree/Agree | Neither Agree nor Disagree | Disagree/ Strongly Disagree |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peers and colleagues are not familiar with AL teaching practices a | 100.0% (1) | 0.0% (0) | 0.0% (0) |
| AL requires more preparation and planning as it is an unfamiliar teaching format for many presenters | 93.9% (93) | 1.0% (1) | 5.1% (5) |
| Many lecturers / presenters are unfamiliar with AL teaching methods | 82.9% (92) | 12.6% (14) | 4.5% (5) |
| Most presenters “grew-up” and studied in a predominately lecture-based system and it worked for them; so, they don’t see a need to change | 63.6% (63) | 20.2% (20) | 16.2% (16) |
| Interaction with the audience may expose knowledge gaps of the lecturer/presenter | 53.0% (53) | 28.0% (28) | 19.0% (19) |
| The culture of my institution is lecture-based | 48.0% (48) | 28.0% (28) | 24.0% (24) |
| At my institution, there is a lack of administrative / secretarial support for AL | 45.5% (50) | 28.2% (31) | 26.4% (29) |
| Course attendees are unfamiliar with AL | 41.7% (5) | 25.0% (3) | 33.3% (4) |
| Learners dislike AL because it requires their participation | 34.0% (35) | 25.2% (26) | 40.8% (42) |
| AL is incompatible with larger audiences | 27.0% (30) | 15.3% (17) | 57.7% (64) |
| My institution does not offer faculty development opportunities for AL teaching methods | 26.9% (29) | 18.5% (20) | 54.6% (59) |
| At my institution, AL is not considered a useful teaching tool in CME | 15.9% (18) | 22.1% (25) | 61.9% (70) |
| AL is an inefficient way of teaching because increased interaction with the audience is time-consuming | 12.7% (14) | 14.5% (16) | 72.7% (80) |
| Lectures require less preparation or planning by instructors a | 0.0% (0) | 100.0% (1) | 0.0% (0) |
| Other barriers n = 7 | Cronbach’s alpha | 95% Confidence Interval | |
| Lower Bound | Upper Bound | ||
| 0.82 | 0.76 | 0.87 | |