Trainee Characteristics and Perceptions of HIV/AIDS Training Quality

Abstract

HIV/AIDS education and training have played a vital role in keeping health providers up to date on emerging developments and approaches. This study reports findings from seven HIV/AIDS education and training projects. Participants in more than 600 training sessions described themselves, their professional background, and their general reasons for taking the training. Immediately following the training, they also rated the quality of their educational experience along several dimensions. Trainee characteristics were related to assessments of training quality, using a regression decision-tree analytic approach. Although effect sizes were generally small, quality ratings of the HIV/AIDS training experiences were associated with certain projects, basic trainee demographic characteristics, professional background, and experience in the HIV field. Greater understanding about participant characteristics can provide clues about how these training experiences are perceived and processed and may inform decision making about instructional HIV/AIDS curricula.

A Structured Interview Approach to Evaluate HIV Training for Medical Care Providers

“…Such training programs are commonly evaluated by asking trainees to use a Likert scale to rate their satisfaction with the program. Although easy to administer, the Likert scale often results in high satisfaction ratings that provide too little information to allow evaluators to differentiate training quality Huba, Panter, Melchior, Zalumas, et al, 2000;Lalonde et al, 2002;Panter, Huba, Melchior, Anderson, Driscoll, German, et al, 2000).…”