The Emerging Role of Reinforcement in the Clinician's Path from Continuing Education to Practice.

Introduction: Continuing education (CE) activities may affect clinicians' knowledge, skills, self-efficacy, and/or performance. Studies have suggested that self-efficacy may moderate or mediate the relationship between knowledge/competence and performance. Some results have shown that increases in knowledge/competence contributed to increases in self-efficacy. However, clinicians do not always learn something "new" when they participate in CE activities; rather, their knowledge or skills may be reinforced. This study examined whether self-efficacy was greater when clinicians reinforced what they already knew compared with when they learned something new.

Methods: Hierarchical linear modeling was conducted to examine the moderating role of status of knowledge/competence post-CE (reinforced/improved) in the relationship between post-CE knowledge/competence score and self-efficacy across 153 online continuing medical education- and/or CE-certified activities.

Results: The hierarchical linear modeling showed that learners with higher post-CE scores have higher post-self-efficacy ratings. Reinforced learners had higher post-CE-self-efficacy ratings than improved learners, controlling for post-CE score.

Discussion: This study contributes to an expanded understanding of the path from CE to practice. There was benefit to self-efficacy for learners who reinforced but did not improve their knowledge/competence. This study also suggests that pre-post questions can be considered part of the learning process.