Psychologists ordinarily spend five or six years in their doctoral training programs, and five or six times that long in their subsequent careers. From bench to bedside, the need for lifelong learning is an ongoing one, and continuing education is a critical component of lifelong learning. Today, the shelf-life of knowledge in psychology is ever-shrinking, fueled in part by the accelerating rate at which new knowledge is generated. In some areas of psychology, new developments happen so quickly that psychologists' knowledge can become obsolete in just a few years, eroding their professional competence. Imagine a psychologist who took a five-year break before stepping back into a career in neuroscience, forensic psychology or child health psychology. He or she would come back to find that seismic shifts had reshaped the landscape of a once-familiar world.
Continuous professional development — via CE offerings, special courses or remaining abreast of the scientific literature — serves as a counterbalance against such obsolescence. Whether you are a researcher studying the neurobiological basis of behavior, an organizational consultant managing effective team dynamics, or a school psychologist facilitating educational achievement in the context of emotional and behavioral challenges, the need for continuing education is persistently reinforced by the forever-shifting forces of your professional demands.
In today's age of accountability, it is no surprise that over 90 percent of licensing jurisdictions now require continuing education for license renewal. But continuing education for all of us is equal parts ethical mandate and practical dictate. APA's Education Directorate shares this commitment to continuous improvement and strives to be a resource for all psychologists as they pursue the same. During APA's 2015 Annual Convention, Aug. 6–9 in Toronto, the Office of Continuing Education in Psychology will be offering hundreds of sessions and workshops.
Of course, the field of continuing education itself has continued to change. Substantive revisions are reflected in movements toward competency-based CE, interprofessional CE, evidence-based CE and best practices in CE. All across the professional landscape, traditional mechanisms for CE are ceding to a range of innovative methods, fueled by the science of teaching and learning. Didactic methods, the longtime "king of the mountain" in CE, are yielding to more learner-focused methods. The traditional "spray-and-pray" technique in which the presenter "sprays" out as much information as possible and "prays" that some of it sticks, is being joined by problem-based learning, "flipped classrooms," social learning communities and a variety of best practices that all reflect efforts to maximize comprehension, retention, participation and the translation of learning into practice. Long-belated empirical support is now mounting in support of Benjamin Franklin's early observation: "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." APA's approval of the Quality Professional Development and Continuing Education Resolution surely signals APA's most visible commitment to the continuing quest for excellence in continuing education.
As the field of continuing education continues to evolve, it is our responsibility to understand and improve the processes and procedures that constitute continuing education. This calls us to develop a disciplined self-evaluation and investigation into CE methods and outcomes, consistent with the broader movement toward evidence-based CE. Evidence-based CE has been described as education and training that has an ongoing commitment to evaluating educational practices and assessing educational outcomes in support of understanding, promoting and demonstrating the effectiveness of CE in psychology. Evidence-based CE represents the highest standard of continuing education. As Cynthia Belar, PhD, (2004) has rightly noted, "to promote the highest quality of education and training for ourselves ... we must apply psychological science to achieve a better understanding of education and training."
