It’s Doable:
Outcomes-Based
Education
BY DEBRA L. GIST, MPH, FACME
Most everyone has attended an educational ecture that looked appealing on the confer- ence schedule, but ended up being boring and was time ill spent. In today’s economic environment, people don’t have time to
waste. Because adult learners want practical information and
strategies they can apply back at the office, the hours they
devote to education should have a definite and solid return on
investment. Because education is a major benefit associations
offer members, providing the highest quality outcomes-based
education is in every association’s best interest.
Tangible Application
In the mid-1980s, sociologist and theorist William Spady de-
termined that the American primary and secondary education
curriculum did not prepare students for successful careers,
since it concentrated on “inputs” rather than “outputs,” or
what the student is able to do following the education. He
developed what some considered a radical model for reforming
education: outcomes-based education. Spady claimed “out-
comes are what learners can actually do with what they know
and have learned — they are tangible application of what has
been learned.”
In his book, Paradigm Lost: Reclaiming America’s Educa-
tional Future, Spady delineates three components of a learning community’s program structure:
1. Organizational purpose and direction
2. Empowering student outcomes
3. Instructional delivery system
Spady also identified a fourth component for a learning
community, and that is “organizational support and culture,”
which represents the support structure for the aforementioned
components. Most professional associations consider them-
selves to be a learning resource for their members and would
be well served to compare their current continuing education
program against Spady’s components.
While controversy and criticism of Spady’s framework exist
and persist in pedagogy — the education of children and adolescents — many working in the andragogy field — the art and
science of helping adults learn — see the value in outcomes-based education, especially those in the field of competency-based education, such as continuing medical education.
When the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical
Education adopted its “Updated Accreditation Criteria” in
2006, it created major change for many providers and for
commercial supporters of continuing medical education, as it
required CME providers to base their educational activities on
the professional practice gaps of physicians, analysis of why
