Trends and Topics in Continuing Education Survey By Michelle Margo, MA, Lana L. Huberty, PhD, and Brooke Burk, PhD Welcome to the New Year, a time for innovative and fresh ideas for elevating park and recreation professionals through professional development. In the past two years, higher education institutions have reacted to COVID by offering online and hybrid options to the traditional face-to-face courses. With the new delivery format options, higher education institutions can now reach more individuals to assist them with meeting their professional career goals. What institutions of higher education have learned throughout COVID instruction is that education must be flexible to meet unique demands of working professionals, adaptable to adjust to the learning environments for students around the world, and provide relevant, real-world application of new knowledge and theory in a competence-based setting. In recognition of this need, the authors engaged in a research project that was intended to examine the skills or knowledge that recreation and park professionals seek to advance goals (for themselves as well as those they work with).
Where we were… Many practitioners working in the recreation and leisure studies field are seeking opportunities to upgrade their skills, knowledge, and capacity in the context of their work. The impetus to do so stems from several factors, including the increased professionalization of recreation and leisure careers, the growing need to possess diverse and adaptable skills, the loss of fulltime public recreation positions, and increased competition for jobs in the field. For some, these changes lead them to pursue additional qualifications (e.g., degree completion programs; certificate programs) through postsecondary education. (McKeown & Rich, 2020). Other researchers examined the challenges to the status quo for current and prospective students (Gulley, 2021) which suggests there is an assumption in higher education that most students are roughly 1824 years and are attending four-year, residentially-focused institutions. Even the research on college students and
the theoretical underpinnings of how we manage our institutional systems is reliant on these assumptions. We are in a time when institutions (and systems) of higher education need to recognize the changing (well, in many ways, already changed) demographics of those we serve. This current research project specifically looked to examine the skills or knowledge that professionals seek to advance professional goals for themselves as well as those they work with and supervise.
What we collected… At the 2021 Minnesota Recreation and Park Association (MRPA) Annual Conference, participants were asked to complete a Trends and Topics in Continuing Education Survey. The assessment tool was created in collaboration by the authors. This assessment was distributed online using a scan code and Qualtrics survey. The survey was a mixed-methods tool with simple demographic questions at the beginning. The survey was completed by 107 MRPA professional members responding. These professional members included park recreation employees, already working in the field, within the state of Minnesota.
12 MINNESOTA Recreation and Parks • www.mnrpa.org
In the past two years, higher education institutions have reacted to COVID y b ofe f ring online and y h brid options to the traditional a f ce-to-a f ce courses.
