S. Christian Smith, Director of Career Services for Elon University School of Law, has published, “Counselors’ Continuing Education: An Exploratory Assessment of Activities and Perceived Value” in the Tennessee Counseling Association Journal, Volume 2, Number 1, 2008.
Smith’s article describes results of a national study of participation in continuing education by National Certified Counselors (NCCs).
The purpose of the study was to explore the range of formats through which continuing education is obtained by NCCs, to identify factors contributing to counselors’ choices of delivery format, and to assess the value counselors assign to various types of continuing education activities and delivery methods.
In the article, Smith notes that continuing education has grown substantially in the last three decades, with approximately 90 million Americans now completing some form of professional learning annually.
Smith reports that the factors most often identified by counselors as determining their choice of continuing education opportunities include practical content, cost, and distance to the activity, while the desirability of the activity location and opportunities for interaction with other professionals were least often selected as determining factors.
Smith calls for greater emphasis on practical content by continuing education providers based on the study’s results, saying, “the challenge is for providers to offer the right mix of theoretical and practical, skills-based information in each of their continuing education offerings.”