Medical Education (12/01/22) Stephenson, Christopher R.; Yudkowsky, Rachel; Wittich, Christopher M.

Researchers compared learner engagement and teaching efficacy in livestreamed and in-person continuing medical education (CME) over three years. The authors used a course that began as in-person in 2018 but switched to livestream for 2020 and 2021. In all, 159 learners completed the Learner Engagement Inventory and Teaching Effectiveness Instrument following each presentation. Key factors of the presentations included audience response, pre/post-test format, time of day and words per slide, with medical knowledge rated by audience response. The researchers compared formats via a repeated measures ANOVA and correlated them using a mixed model approach. There were no significant differences between in-person or livestream CME in terms of engagement, while in-person CME saw higher teacher effectiveness scores. Learner engagement strongly correlated with audience response, pre/post-test and time of day in livestream CME, while interactivity metrics and medical knowledge did not. "CME course planners should consider offering livestream CME while exploring strategies to enhance teaching effectiveness in livestreamed settings," the researchers concluded.

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