Active Learning Among Health Professions’ Educators: Perceptions, Barriers, and Use

Introduction
Active learning engages students in the learning process through meaningful learning activities. Despite evidence that active learning can improve student’s comprehension and problem solving, many educators remain reluctant to adopt it. The goal of this study was to explore health professions’ educators’ perceptions of active learning and identify implementation barriers.

Materials and Methods
We developed a 25-question survey based on the Miller and Metz “perceptions of active learning” survey. We added 12 single-response demographics questions to the original 13 survey questions.

Results
One hundred three respondents completed the survey. We found positive perceptions of active learning significantly correlated with gender, rank, teaching FTE, and full-time employment. The use of specific active learning modalities significantly correlated with gender, terminal degree, institutional appointment, academic rank, and role. Lack of time to develop materials and lack of class time were the most common personal barriers identified, while being lecture-accustomed and lack of training were the most common perceived barriers to the implementation of active learning by their peers.

Conclusion
Despite overwhelmingly positive perceptions of active learning among US health professions’ educators and desire to incorporate it, a gap still exists between institutional and educators’ support of active learning due to implementation barriers for resource-intensive active learning.