Does the Use of Multifactorial Training Methods Increase Practitioners' Competence?

Skilled therapy practitioners are required by their governing associations to seek professional development per licensure requirements. These requirements facilitate clinical reasoning and confidence during patient care. There are limited online professional development workshops, especially ones that offer multifactorial training as an educational strategy to increase confidence in applying evidence-based clinical skills. To address this, a six-week online initiative was conducted to train practitioners using multifactorial training methods (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic teaching techniques). The objective was to show that multifactorial online training increases a practitioner's clinical competence, which facilitates application of effective interventions. Outcomes revealed that once practitioners were provided online multifactorial training methods, they became more confident when applying an evidence-based intervention. The online components of the training enhanced the outcomes of practitioner competency and confidence because the format allowed participants to work at their own pace, review audio and video training units, and reference information as many times as suited their learning style. The fact that the training was always accessible through the online platform made learning client-centered and convenient for working practitioners. As practitioners experienced diverse online training strategies, they began to identify preferred learning techniques based on their specific learning style. Overall, this project showed that online multifactorial training methods are an effective strategy to increase practitioner's knowledge, which positively impacts practitioner's confidence and clinical competence.