Training Providers in the Use of Evidence-Based Treatments: A Comparison of In-Person and Online Delivery Modes

Abstract

Evidenced-based psychotherapies (EBPs) are primarily disseminated via in-person workshops, which have been shown to be effective in training clinicians. However, there is limited space at these workshops, they occur in limited locations, and the time and money required to travel to these workshops is limiting for many providers. An online virtual and interactive training is a potential solution to increase EBP training opportunities for providers. The present study was an initial step to address this limitation in the current research. In-person workshops were compared with live 3-D workshops conducted in the online virtual and interactive platform, Second Life. Analysis of the data demonstrated that the 706 participants, regardless of training modality, demonstrated significant knowledge gains and that the magnitude of these gains did not differ across the in-person and virtual online training modalities. Participants in the online and in-person modality also did not differ in their perceived readiness to implement the EBP after the workshop. A significant difference in training satisfaction was found between the two modalities, with the in-person training group reporting higher satisfaction ratings than the online training participants. Overall, these findings suggest that virtual online EBP training is at least as effective as in-person training.