Commitment to change (CTC) questions are the caboose of every post-activity CME evaluation – stripped of all relevancy and sustained solely by nostalgia. Thirty years since its introduction, we can now all retire this method, confident that it has served us well, but that it’s now time for something more…app-ish. And off it goes, grumbling it’s final words toward obscurity: “…but, you never really knew me”.
Before you dismiss CTC, check out this article. People have been studying CTC for a long time. And there’s value to this approach – assuming you use it correctly. Should you use a follow-up survey? When? How? How should you word the questions? Include a rating scale? And how should you sort through and interpret the results? This stuff all matters. And you won’t find an easier to digest summary than this 2010 article in Evaluation & the Health Professions.
So, yes, if you’re simply maintaining a “what are you going to change in your practice” question at the end of every CME evaluation – definitely send that packing. Then read the aforementioned article. You’ll find that CTC has limitations, but when done in accordance with the latest evidence, there’s a lot of good data to be had.
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