Motivation and the Facilitation of Change, Learning, and Participation in Educational Programs for Health Professionals

To be effective change agents, continuing education (CE) professionals must be able to develop strategies that assess and affect learners’ motivation to learn about specific topics and engage in specific learning activities. This article suggests a framework for assessing and influencing learner motivation. Need reduction theory based on discrepancy analysis provides one way to explain and predict health care professionals’motivation to learn. Pathgoal theory describes how learners make decisions to engage in a specific learning activity. The understanding and use of these two perspectives can help CME programmers influence learner needs and target those needs with more effective CME programs that are likely to draw high rates of participation.