List Four Primary Reasons for Requiring Continuing Education Hours for Athletic Trainers
J Athl Train. 2001 Oct-Dec; 36(4): 388–395.
Self-Perceived Continuing Education Needs of Certified Athletic Trainers
Abstract
Objective:
To determine the self-perceived continuing education needs of current certified athletic trainers and the factors that affect those needs.
Design and Setting:
Self-reporting surveys using a Likert-type scale were sent to 2000 certified athletic trainers.
Subjects:
All subjects were certified athletic trainers working in the United States.
Measurements:
A 3-part survey of continuing education participation, continuing education needs, and demographic data was developed. Continuing education items were based on the domains of athletic training as defined by the Athletic Training Role Delineation Study, 3rd edition.
Results:
The response rate was 52% (1040/2000). Athletic trainers in this study perceived "some to moderate need" for continuing education within each of the domains. Rehabilitation of Athletic Injuries (domain 3) was the area in which athletic trainers saw the most need for continuing education. The back and neck were specific anatomical areas perceived by the athletic trainers as needing the highest level of continuing education. Sex was a significant factor in the perceived importance of continuing education within all but domain 5, Professional Development and Responsibility. Other factors included employment setting and years of experience.
Conclusions:
Athletic trainers in this study perceived each of the tasks within the domains to be at least "somewhat important," with rehabilitation and specific continuing education programs for the back and neck being the most important. Sex, employment setting, and years of experience may influence what athletic trainers think is important. Therefore, continuing education providers should attempt to vary programs and tailor them to various audiences.
Keywords: continuing education, professional development, adult learning
Continuing education has historically been a part of the profession of athletic training. Mandatory continuing education requirements were originally established by the National Athletic Trainers' Association (NATA) in 1973 to encourage attendance at the national meeting. Two continuing education units (CEUs), equaling 20 hours of contact time, were provided for attendance at the national meeting, which equaled the 20 CEUs per year necessary for continued certification (Paul Grace, oral communication, March 30, 1996). When the initial requirements for continuing education were set, athletic trainers were required to have 60 contact hours in a 3-year period. As the profession of athletic training progressed, mandatory continuing education made a gradual switch from service-based continuing education to health care–based continuing education, consistent with the maturation of a profession. As the profession sought accreditation and recognition, continuing education credit for serving on committees was replaced by more content-oriented practices as required by the various accrediting agencies for the NATA and later the NATA Board of Certification (NATABOC) (NATABOC, unpublished data, 2000). The number of hours was also changed several times since the inception of mandatory continuing education in 1974 and continues to be evaluated at the end of each 3-year reporting period. Currently, the NATABOC requires that at the end of each cycle certified athletic trainers (ATCs) must have met recertification requirements, including the completion of 80 CEUs, which are equivalent to 80 clock hours.1
Mandatory continuing education is not unique to the field of athletic training. The mandatory continuing education movement arose out of the perception that professionals need to be committed to lifelong learning to maintain and improve their competence. According to Cervero,2 the impetus for mandatory continuing education came from federal and state governments, especially state licensing boards, professional associations, and consumer groups. State governmental involvement in mandatory continuing education resulted in part because of awareness of professional support for lifelong practitioner learning and partly through the stimulus of the malpractice crisis.3 Professional associations have been at the forefront of encouraging mandatory continuing education and, as Little3 suggested, were known to proclaim its value before the states began to apply their regulatory actions.
Benefits for patients and clients are some of the main thrusts behind mandatory continuing education policies put forth by consumer groups. Such policies assume that secondary beneficiaries—consumers of professional services, professional associations, institutional providers of services, and the public in general—have a vested interest in continuing professional education.4
Even though continuing education for many professions is mandatory, that does not seem to be the primary motivating factor for professionals who attend continuing education programs. Several authors4 , 5 indicated that professionals' primary motivation to learn arises from problems or issues in their daily practice and that these interest areas are part of a well-rounded program of learning.
Large group instruction for continuing education is the norm in many allied health professions (athletic training, nursing, physical therapy, occupational therapy, physician assistant). Typically, professionals gather for topic-centered symposiums usually consisting of 1-hour lectures by experts on the topics. The topics are generally chosen by the continuing education provider using feedback from the previous year's symposium, trends, technology issues, or simply the availability of certain experts for the scheduled date.
The number of approved continuing education providers for athletic trainers (currently 850) has never been higher.6 Numerous programs are available to the ATC for use in obtaining the required CEUs. However, much discrepancy exists among the programs in terms of length, quality, depth of information offered, and value to the ATC.
The need for ATCs to maintain competence through systematic acquisition of new knowledge and skills as part of a lifelong learning process has never been greater. Factors that contribute to this increased need are the more rapidly changing nature of knowledge in the field, increasing diversity of employment settings in athletic training, restructuring of the professional preparation requirements, the influence of technology on assessment and treatment procedures, and the changing health care system. Growing diversity in professional roles dictates that continuing education opportunities be broadened to meet the needs of the entire profession.
Research is lacking on continuing education in athletic training. A review of the current literature shows little evidence that continuing education opportunities are offered systematically. Additionally, little research has been done to assess the self-perceived or expressed needs of ATCs for continuing education or if those needs differ for various employment settings or with years of experience in the profession. In focus group research, Weidner7 found that ATCs across employment settings felt that their needs were not being met by continuing education opportunities at district meetings. Subjects in his study indicated a preference for less traditional topics and a more thematic approach to presentations.
Weidner's7 research indicated that ATCs may have many educational needs in various settings that are going unmet. Many factors can influence what the ATC needs to maintain continued competence in the field. Questions also exist as to whether simply attending a continuing education course equates to immediate or long-term competence. Debate continues on the value of certain types of continuing education. With the focus of the NATA and the NATABOC on reform of all aspects of athletic training education, a formal needs assessment in the area of continuing education is timely to determine what ATCs perceive they need. The purpose of my article is to report the findings on self-perceived continuing education needs of ATCs and factors that affect those needs.
METHODS
Subjects
Subjects included a random sample of 2000 ATCs chosen to coincide with the sample numbers used by the NATABOC in the validation of the Role Delineation Study. 8 The sample was stratified by NATA districts. Names in each district were randomly selected, with the count per district determined by the district's percentage of the total NATABOC ATCs.
Instrument
I developed the questionnaire by analyzing and adapting other needs assessment instruments used in several disciplines, including adult education, medicine, engineering, allied health, and leisure services. Specific instruments used in the development of the questionnaire for this study included Kerlin's Continuing Education Needs Assessment for Nursing Home Surveyors9 and Escovitz and Augsburger's survey instrument of the continuing education needs of Ohio optometrists.10 The questionnaire for this research was created through consultation with athletic training experts and the adaptation of questions from the above-mentioned surveys to the specific profession of athletic training. The NATABOC Role Delineation Study 8 was the basis for structuring the survey of ATCs. Content validity was established through review by the NATABOC Board of Directors and was pilot tested with 30 randomly selected ATCs. Minor changes to clarify wording were made after the pilot testing. The survey instrument consisted of 3 parts.
Part 1: Continuing Education Participation
The first part of the survey asked about the respondents' participation in continuing education activities during the last 3-year reporting period. Information was gathered about the importance of factors that determined attendance at continuing education activities, employers' support of continuing education participation, preferred format for continuing education (specifically, respondents' preferences for conferences, workshops, college courses, research, and home study audio and video programs, among others), and various factors that affect the participant's decision to attend or not attend continuing education activities. Attendance factors and preferred format will be discussed in a future article.
Part 2: Continuing Education Needs
This section contained ordinal-scale items that addressed topics or professional areas of perceived needs and interest in continuing education. The Role Delineation Study 8 was used as a framework for developing the questions, which paralleled the tasks listed within each of the domains identified in the study. To determine the level of interest for each task within each domain, a 5-point Likert-type scale was used, with A signifying substantial need; B, moderate need; C, some need; D, little need; and E, no need. Space for other areas of need or interest was provided in the form of open-ended questions.
Part 3: Demographics
Thirteen variables were measured on nominal and ordinal measurement scales to obtain the ATC's educational and work experience profiles, including employment setting, years of experience, educational degrees, sex, ethnicity, age, salary, marital status, dependent children at home, NATA district, number of ATCs they are in contact with daily, other health professionals they are involved with on a daily basis, and environment (eg, city, urban, rural).
Procedures
After institutional review board approval and pilot testing of the instrument, questionnaires, answer sheets, and accompanying letters were sent to all ATCs identified in the sample. Each questionnaire was numerically coded to assist with follow-up notices on unreturned questionnaires. Three weeks after the mailings were sent, a total of 760 surveys (38% return rate) was received. A follow-up postcard reminder was then mailed to all individuals who had not responded. Statistical analysis involved descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences for Windows (version 8.0, SPSS, Inc, Chicago, IL).
RESULTS
A total of 1040 ATCs responded, for a return rate of 52%. Distribution of respondents by employment setting is seen in the Figure. The proportion of college or university ATCs who responded to the study was higher than the NATA membership figures for the same period. This may have been due to the willingness of college and university ATCs to return the study or may have been a result of the randomization process.
Employment settings of certified athletic trainers.
Most respondents (657, 63%) worked in a city or urban environment. Another 297 (29%) worked in a small community, with 64 (6%) working in a rural environment. Of all respondents, 551 (53%) held a master's degree. Ninety-four (9%) were currently pursuing an additional degree.
When viewed as a whole, 322 (31%) of the respondents did not have daily contact with other ATCs, and 218 (21%) had daily contact with only 1 other ATC. When analyzed by environment, 634 (61%) of rural athletic trainers worked with 0 to 1 other ATC, compared with 551 (53%) of the small-community and 510 (49%) of the urban ATCs. A total of 541 (52%) of the rural ATCs worked with 0 to 1 other health professional, whereas 458 (44%) of small-community ATCs and 343 (33%) of the urban athletic trainers worked with 0 or 1 other health care professional. As would be expected, a larger number of urban ATCs (499, 48%) worked with more than 3 other health care professionals, whereas 406 (39%) of the small-community ATCs did the same. Of the rural ATCs, 343 (33%) worked with more than 3 other health care professionals.
Reported Continuing Education Participation
Most ATCs (624, 60%) obtained between 90 and 130 contact hours during the previous 3 years. This is expected, since the minimum requirement for CEUs in a 3-year period is 80 contact hours. In addition, ATCs indicated strong attendance at the NATA Annual Meeting and Clinical Symposia. More than 473 (45%) of respondents obtained more than 3 CEUs (30 contact hours) from the annual meeting, and 226 (22%) obtained more than 6 CEUs (60 hours) from that source. District meetings and conferences offered through NATA-approved providers also were popular choices among ATCs in this study; 317 (30%) of respondents received more than 3 CEUs from those activities. College courses, publications, and home study were the least popular methods of attaining CEUs.
Self-Perceived Continuing Education Needs Among ATCs
Need was defined by using the domains and tasks identified by the NATABOC 1995 Role Delineation Study. The reader should note that this study was performed before the release of the 1999 Role Delineation Study (4th edition),11 which included 6 domains instead of the 5 in the 3rd edition.
Respondents were asked to rate their perceived need in each task (ranging from 5 to 8 tasks per domain), indicating "no need" (1) through "substantial need" (5). Responses within each domain were rank ordered according to frequency of response. The level of concern was determined for each domain as a whole with an overall mean so that comparisons could be made across domains. The overall means for the 5 domains are presented in the following sections, with the overall mean for each domain presented in Table 1.
Table 1
Perceived Continuing Education Needs Within Each Domain
Prevention of Athletic Injuries (Domain 1)
The 8 tasks dealing with prevention of athletic injuries are included in the analysis of the first domain (Table 2). The mean level of self-perceived need for this domain was 3.67, reflecting a moderate level of concern. When tasks within prevention of athletic injuries (domain 1) were compared, identification of physical conditions predisposing the athlete or physically active individual to increased risk of injury or illness in athletic activity (task 1) was most frequently cited as a continuing education need. This task includes content areas such as preseason screening, nutrition, and normal anatomy and physiology. When the tasks were rank ordered by means, ATCs placed more importance on continuing education opportunities for tasks pertaining directly to patient or athlete care than on more administrative tasks. Tasks that the ATC does daily, such as taping and wrapping, were not deemed as important as others in this domain.
Table 2
Self-Perceived Need for Prevention of Athletic Injuries (Domain 1)
Recognition, Evaluation, and Immediate Care (Domain 2)
The mean level of self-perceived need for this domain was 3.88, reflecting a moderate level of concern for continuing education dealing with recognition, evaluation, and immediate care of athletic injuries. Respondents indicated that special tests on the injured area (task 4) was the most important task requiring need for continuing education (Table 3). The application of special tests was followed in level of need by the task concerned with determining the appropriate course of action (task 5) and selection and application of emergency equipment and techniques (task 7). Referral procedures (task 8) were the area with the least need in this domain. As in domain 1 (Prevention of Athletic Injuries), the rank order of self-perceived need for continuing education in this domain indicated that ATCs were more concerned with evaluating the injury via special tests than with any of the other tasks within this domain.
Table 3
Self-Perceived Need for Recognition, Evaluation, and Immediate Care (Domain 2)
Although the NATA has identified specific tasks in which an ATC must be competent, it is also possible that ATCs' additional education needs may be greater for injuries to some parts of the body than others. In addition to the NATA-identified tasks, respondents were asked to indicate their need for continuing education for recognition, evaluation, and immediate care of various anatomical sites and conditions. Respondents indicated considerable perceived need on all listed anatomical areas or conditions (Table 4). Means for all listed anatomical areas and conditions were greater than 3.81, indicating moderate to substantial need in each area. Subjects indicated the most perceived need for continuing education within the listed anatomical areas as the back and neck, with the area of least concern being the lower leg, ankle, and foot. However, the mean for this area was 3.82, reflecting a higher level of self-perceived need for continuing education than any of the means for individual tasks within Health Care Administration (domain 4) and Professional Development and Responsibility (domain 5). The means for importance of continuing education indicated by the respondents for the anatomical areas were also higher than the overall means of domains 4 and 5.
Table 4
Self-Perceived Need for Continuing Education Units According to Anatomical Site or Condition
Rehabilitation and Reconditioning of Athletic Injuries (Domain 3)
This domain showed the highest overall level of self-perceived need (mean, 4.15) (Table 5). The task most frequently identified as having the highest level of need was construction of rehabilitation programs for the injured athlete (task 2), followed by identifying injury or illness status, functional tests and measurements (task 1), and selection of appropriate rehabilitation equipment, techniques, and modalities (task 3).
Table 5
Self-Perceived Need for Rehabilitation and Reconditioning of Athletic Injuries (Domain 3)
Health Care Administration (Domain 4)
Responses for this domain indicated less overall concern than for the first 3 domains (mean, 3.66) (Table 6). Developing a plan for emergencies, referral, and management of injuries or illnesses (task 6) was ranked first among this group in need, followed by establishing written protocols for injury management (task 4) and maintenance of health care records and documentation (task 1). Compliance with safety and sanitation standards (task 2), personnel management (task 3), and purchasing practices, bid letting, and budgeting (task 5) rounded out the domain.
Table 6
Self-Perceived Need for Health Care Administration (Domain 4)
Professional Development and Responsibility (Domain 5)
Domain 5 includes tasks regarding professional development, communication skills, research, and public relations. The respondents indicated the least concern of all domains for continuing education in the area of professional development and responsibility (mean, 3.58) (Table 7). This may be due in part to the fact that the tasks in this domain do not deal directly with the health care of the athlete. The tasks within this domain were rank ordered according to mean level of indicated need for continuing education. Obtaining information about state, local, and federal regulations regarding athletic training practices (task 3) ranked first in this domain, followed by obtaining current literature about sports medicine issues (task 1) and developing interpersonal communication skills (task 2). Tasks 4 and 5, learning to conduct sports medicine research and public relations, were seen as the areas within this domain with the least need for continuing education.
Table 7
Self-Perceived Need for Professional Development and Responsibility (Domain 5)
Other Indicated Needs for Continuing Education
After the questions within each domain, space was provided for subjects to identify other topics within the domain for which they needed continuing education. Very few responses were given for other needs within each domain. Domain 4, Health Care Administration, had the highest response, with areas of additional self-perceived continuing education needs listed as personnel management, business management, third-party providers, outcome studies, and legal issues. Other predominant themes were "specific conditions as opposed to general themes," indicated for domains 1 and 2 by many of the athletic trainers who chose to answer the open-ended questions. Open-ended responses for domain 2 also included eating disorders and dermatology. Respondents who chose to answer the open-ended questions within Professional Development and Responsibility (domain 5) gave tenure and promotion issues, public relations ideas, and sensitivity training as areas of interest. No other predominant themes or suggestions were given within any of the domains, but the open-ended questions elicited very few responses. Fewer than 300 respondents chose to write anything in the space available for open response to other topics of interest.
Factors That Affect Self-Perceived Continuing Education Needs
I used multiple regression analysis to determine the influence of each factor (employment setting, years of experience, environment, employer support, age, professional isolation, and education) on the perceived need for additional education in each of the domains of knowledge in athletic training.
Prevention of Athletic Injuries (Domain 1)
The variables indicated as predictors of the importance of continuing education in domain 1 were employment setting, years of experience, employee support, age, educational background, environment, and professional isolation. Stepwise multiple regression was used to analyze the contribution of the predictor values to the self-perceived educational needs in domain 1. Sex was a significant factor in predicting the importance of continuing education for the various tasks dealing with prevention of athletic injuries (Table 8). Female athletic trainers indicated greater need for continuing education within this domain. Years of experience also was a predictor, as was professional isolation (b = −0.03, SE of b = 0.02, β = −.06, P < .05).
Table 8
Summary of Regression Analysis for Variables Predicting Importance of Tasks Within Prevention of Athletic Injuries (Domain 1)
Recognition, Evaluation, and Immediate Care of Athletic Injuries (Domain 2)
Sex was the only significant variable for domain 2 (b = −0.32, SE of b = 0.067, β = −.15, P < .05). As in domain 1, statistical significance was achieved; however, R 2 was only 0.02, thus indicating that sex accounted for only 2% of the variance in self-perceived need for continuing education in the knowledge of the tasks within domain 2. Women again felt more need for continuing education for skills in this domain.
Rehabilitation and Reconditioning of Athletic Injuries (Domain 3)
Female athletic trainers perceived more need for continuing education in the area of rehabilitation and reconditioning, and therefore, sex was again a significant contributor to the self-perceived continuing education needs of the ATCs in this study (b = −0.18, SE of b = 0.057, β = −.09, P < .05). Again, R 2 was low at 0.01. Employment setting entered the regression analysis on the second step, increasing the R 2 to 0.02 (b = −0.05, SE of b = 0.02, β = −.09, P < .05).
Health Care Administration (Domain 4)
Sex again was the only independent variable in this set to enter the multiple regression equation at the .05 level (b = −0.28, SE of b = 0.06, β = −.14). As in the above domains, although statistical significance was achieved, the R 2 was 0.02. Therefore, sex accounted for only 2% of the variance in responses within domain 4, with female ATCs perceiving more need for continuing education in this area.
Professional Development and Responsibility (Domain 5)
Employer support contributed significantly to the self-perceived need for continuing education in domain 5. Employer support was significant (b = −0.12, SE of b = 0.04, β = −.10, P < .05). R 2 for domain 5 was 0.01. The negative β indicates that those ATCs who received full or partial employer support for continuing education did not perceive this domain to be as critical as those who did not receive employer support.
DISCUSSION
Athletic trainers in this study perceive "some to moderate need" for continuing education within each of the defined areas of knowledge and skills expected of athletic trainers. Rehabilitation of athletic injuries (domain 3) was the area in which continuing education was seen by the respondents as having more need than the others, with a mean of 4.15. The other domains all had means between 3.62 and 3.88. In this study, the ATCs indicated greater need for continuing education when asked to identify need by anatomical area or condition. The back and neck were the areas perceived by the athletic trainers with the highest level of need for continuing education (mean, 4.3). High level of need was also indicated for information on emergency procedures, the shoulder, head, systemic illness, and abdominal injuries (mean, 4.0). Subjects in this study indicated the most perceived need for continuing education within the listed anatomical areas as the back and neck. The area of least concern was the lower leg, ankle, and foot. However, the mean for this area was 3.82, indicating a higher level of self-perceived need for continuing education than any of the means for individual tasks within Health Care Administration (domain 4) and Professional Development and Responsibility (domain 5). Thus, ATCs' level of concern for obtaining continuing education specific to the evaluation and treatment of certain injuries and illnesses was higher than that for health care administration, public relations skills, or legal or ethical parameters.
Tasks within each of the domains are general in nature and represent not so much what athletic trainers are doing but what skills and knowledge we as a profession expect our new graduates to possess. Sample tasks from the Recognition, Evaluation, and Immediate Care of Athletic Injuries (domain 2) included palpation of the involved area and performing special tests on the involved area. In this study, ATCs may have felt less need for these tasks because evaluation of injuries, regardless of anatomical area, follows general procedures that are taught throughout the athletic training education programs. However, when specific anatomical areas are considered, the procedures to assess an injury become more specific. This may have led the ATCs in this study to indicate that they perceive more need for continuing education when these anatomical areas are considered. This is consistent with other authors' findings4 , 5 , 7 that professionals often are most interested in topics that are specific to problems they may see in their everyday practice. The desire for additional education on specific injuries, illnesses, and anatomical areas was also expressed in the open-ended questions. The respondents who chose to answer these questions stressed that specificity was important and that information was desired on new ways of testing specific body parts. They also wanted hands-on practice of specific evaluative tests and in-depth study of specific anatomical areas. These findings follow Weidner's7 findings that athletic trainers desired more thematic approaches and more practical application workshops. The fact that the respondents' desire for knowledge and skill was not addressed in the 3rd edition of the NATABOC Role Delineation Study, 8 which was used to create this questionnaire, further illustrates the changing of the profession. Since the completion of this research, the 4th edition of the Role Delineation Study 11 has been released and includes many of the topics that were indicated as desired areas for continuing education.
Emergency procedures and information on systemic illness were also indicated by the respondents as areas of greater perceived need. This may be in part due to the potential seriousness of those injuries and the infrequency with which they occur in the normal athletic setting. If an ATC is not exposed to a potentially serious situation on a regular basis, he or she may feel greater need to seek practice situations or update procedures through continuing education.
Factors That Affect Self-Perceived Continuing Education Needs
I hypothesized that employment setting, years of experience, environment, employer support, age, professional isolation, and education contribute to the perception of need within each domain of athletic training. Sex was a significant factor in the importance of continuing education within each domain except for Professional Development and Responsibility (domain 5). Female ATCs in this study indicated a greater need for continuing education across most of the domains. Sex has rarely been investigated in the continuing education literature but appears to be of greater influence than other individual variables in the self-perceived need for continuing education within the domains of athletic training and in the reasons for attending continuing education activities. This finding is particularly interesting because little research has been conducted on differences in professional practice and professional career patterns by sex, although Cafferella and Olson12 identified differences in more general career patterns for men and women. To date, I am unaware of any studies within athletic training that have addressed sex issues with regard to professional preparation and practice.
By contrast, I found that some individual variables seem to have less influence than expected. Although they achieved statistical significance, sex, years of experience, and professional isolation accounted for less than 2% of the variance in domain 1. This may have been due to several factors. First, because of the large sample population, statistical significance was obtained but did not necessarily account for a large percentage of the variance. Second, variance within the domain itself across all subjects was minimal. The mean for domain 1 was 3.67, with an SD of 0.82. This small variance across all subjects may reflect the fact that CEUs are required by the NATA and are therefore deemed important or that these tasks are already defined by the NATA as being important.
The literature on professions, especially the writings of Slotnick et al,13 emphasize the development of a career through several stages and the influence of this psychological development on attendance and preferences for continuing education. Yet, age and years of experience showed little influence on the self-perceived continuing education needs among the respondents in this study. The only domain in which years of experience was a significant factor was Prevention of Athletic Injuries (domain 1), where it, along with sex and professional isolation, proved to be a predictor for the importance of continuing education. However, within domain 1, sex, years of experience, and professional isolation together accounted for only 2% of the variance in self-perceived need.
The only other factors to enter the multiple regression analysis at the .05 level of significance were employment setting for Rehabilitation of Athletic Injuries (domain 3) and employer support for Professional Development and Responsibility (domain 5). When the means were examined in relation to the multiple regression results, ATCs working in the clinic setting, whether full time or in conjunction with another setting, saw less need for continuing education in rehabilitation techniques than did ATCs in the traditional settings of the high school or college (Table 9). Generally, ATCs in the clinic setting perform numerous and thorough rehabilitation programs with athletes for most of their work day. However, ATCs in other settings may perform a smaller number of rehabilitation programs in the course of their job.
Table 9
Mean (SD) Level of Need for Continuing Education for Each Domain by Employment Setting
The inability of the variables in this study to account for a larger percentage of the variance may be because all ATCs deemed the tasks within each domain to be important. This resulted in very little variance among the domains, so that when multiple regression analysis was run, mathematical significance was achieved because of the large sample size. The results may also reflect the fact that the Role Delineation Study does not necessarily represent what ATCs are doing in their professional practice but what the profession expects its entry-level candidates to know. Another possibility, as suggested by a number of researchers,4 , 5 , 14 is that the selection of continuing education material by other health professionals is highly individual and may even be idiosyncratic. Also, attending a continuing education opportunity does not necessarily mean that an ATC has obtained competence in that skill. For example, ATCs may choose continuing education topics for reasons other than their perceived weaknesses, perhaps because they are interested in a topic (no matter how competent they already are) or for numerous other reasons. Other, possibly unmeasurable variables may affect the perception of need within the domains.
CONCLUSIONS
Overall, ATCs in this study perceived each of the tasks within the domains to be at least "somewhat important." The fact that the NATABOC has indicated that these are the tasks that athletic trainers should be able to perform and the knowledge that athletic trainers should possess may have affected the response to these questions and resulted in the small variance among the responses. Because of the small variance, however, the results substantiate the NATABOC's Role Delineation Study by showing that these ATCs perceived the tasks described by the study to be important, therefore reinforcing the validity of that instrument with regard to the importance of specific athletic training knowledge and skill.
Several areas not covered by the Role Delineation Study were determined by ATCs to be important areas for continuing education. Interest in tenure and promotion issues, research information, and public relations may be the result of more ATCs moving into faculty positions as program directors. Eating disorders and dermatology were also important areas for continuing education. Those ATCs working with specific athletic populations that are more susceptible to these conditions may feel a greater need than those ATCs who are not as closely associated with those groups.
Sex was a significant factor in the importance of continuing education within all but 1 domain. Female ATCs indicated a greater need for continuing education opportunities across most domains. Sex appeared to be of greater influence than other individual variables in the self-perceived need for several questions in this study. Male and female ATCs may inherently perceive need differently or may be influenced by other occupational factors. Further exploration of the differences in continuing education needs between male and female ATCs and for various employment settings and years of experience is needed.
Other predictors of perceived importance of continuing education included employment setting and years of experience. Continuing education providers should attempt to provide practical information that ATCs can apply in their daily practice. Many respondents in this study indicated that they attended continuing education activities to search for answers to daily problems they see in their own athletic training rooms. If continuing education is to improve or enhance performance, it must be related to practice. It has to build on previous education, address the professional's entire scope of practice, improve performance, and update knowledge. Regardless of the model used, the relationship between what professionals learn and the direct application of learning to daily practice is critical to the degree of participation and the success of the program. Professionals have specific and diverse educational needs, both because of individual differences and differences in practice due to settings and experiences.
The respondents' greatest need for continuing education in the area of rehabilitation and reconditioning should persuade continuing education providers to include more offerings in these areas. Information pertaining to the rehabilitation of the back and neck was deemed especially important. This may reflect the changing role of the ATC and the involvement of many ATCs in settings with more diverse patient populations.
Continuing education providers need to recognize and understand both the diversity and the changing status of the profession of athletic training and address these factors in educational planning.15 Offering a broad set of topics throughout the year but focusing on thematic, in-depth topics within a given conference may help address this issue. The Annual Meeting and Clinical Symposia has been changed to include numerous breakout sessions and hands-on workshops to try to best meet the needs of most of the participants. The Role Delineation Study should be used as a basis for continuing education topics, but opportunities must exist beyond what the entry-level ATC needs to know to provide the practicing ATC the opportunity to expand his or her knowledge. As a profession, we must also address whether mere attendance at a continuing education opportunity equates to learning or competence. If not, we must consider vast changes in how our continuing education is offered and evaluated. The profession of athletic training is changing and continuing education must change with it. More research and insight are definitely needed in this area.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was partially funded by a grant from the NATA Research and Education Foundation.
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Articles from Journal of Athletic Training are provided here courtesy of National Athletic Trainers Association
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC155434/
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