Mandatory continuing professional education is accepted across many professions as a re-credentialing mechanism to maintain professional competency. Self-directed learning is a widely recognized type of learning to meet mandatory continuing professional education requirements. The nature and characteristics of self-directed learning has been…

Insufficient professional development may lead to poor performance of healthcare professionals. Therefore, continuing education (CE) and continuing professional development (CPD) are needed to secure safe and good quality healthcare. The aim of the study was to investigate the hypothesized associations and their directions between pharmacists'…

Purpose: This study aims to examine the effects of using a personal development plan (PDP) on the undertaking of learning activities and the employee's job competencies. Design/methodology/approach: Data from Dutch pharmacy assistants was collected (n=2,271). Analyses of variance (ANOVAs) as well as regression analyses were conducted on this…

The convenience and flexibility of online learning clearly make it an attractive option for learners in professional development contexts. There is less clarity, however, about how it fares as a vehicle for enabling the applied, practice-oriented outcomes typically associated with professional development learning. This paper presents a case study…

Background: Consumer Medicine Information (CMI) forms an important basis for the dissemination of medicines information worldwide. Methods: This article presents an overview of the design and development of Australian CMI, and discusses "user-testing" as an iterative, formative process for CMI design. Findings: In Australia, legislation…

Introduction: People who handle and regulate temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical products require the knowledge and skills to ensure those products maintain quality, integrity, safety, and efficacy throughout their shelf life. People best acquire such knowledge and skills through "experiential learning" that involves working with other…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to document the ways pharmaceutical representatives learn for work and report attributes of (in)formality and other characteristics of ways of learning perceived as effective and frequently used. Design/methodology/approach: A total of agents 20 from 11 pharmaceutical manufacturers across Canada participated…

The study investigated employee learning strategies in community pharmacies in Australia and the factors that explain differences among pharmacies in the strategies employed. A qualitative methodology was applied, involving semi-structured interviews with owners, managers, or senior employees of 12 pharmacies. The findings revealed learning…

Introduction: The pharmaceutical industry, by funding over 60% of programs in the United States and Canada, plays a major role in continuing medical education (CME), but there are concerns about bias in such CME programs. Bias is difficult to define, and currently no tool is available to measure it. Methods: Representatives from industry and…

This document was produced by the authors based on their research for the report, "Training of Existing Workers: Issues, Incentives and Models," (ED495138) and is an added resource for further information. This support document is divided into the following sections: (1) The Retail Industry--A Snapshot; (2) Case Studies--Hardware, Retail…