CMR Institute Continuous Learning Blog

After finding in our white paper on tablet usage by sales representatives that nearly half of survey respondents reported that using tablets had a positive impact on clinician interactions, we were curious how respondent’s age or years of experience impacted survey answers.

Age = Use of Tablets?

Interestingly, nearly 67 percent of respondents 60 years of age and older indicated they “always or frequently” used a tablet when interacting with clinicians – by far the largest percentage among the age categories to report such high rates of use. By contrast, nearly 41 percent of those in the 20 to 29 years of age range reported they “rarely or never” use a tablet when interacting with clinicians.

At first glance this would seem to run contrary to everything we know about technology adoption among age demographics. However, we believe that the majority of survey respondents who were in the 60 + age range used tablets – thus skewing the results to show such high rates of usage.

Tablet Uses

When it comes to using a tablet to present clinical trial data, 44 percent of those in the 60+ age range reported that it was the most important way to use a tablet. By contrast, 44 percent of those 20 to 29 years of age thought presenting clinical trial data on the tablet was the least important way to use a tablet. Both the 60+ age group (78 percent) and the 20 to 29 age group (54 percent) report that tablets made it more efficient to complete tasks such as reporting sales call activities.

More Experience

The survey found, at this stage in tablet adoption, those with more experience found tablets were more effective when interacting with clinicians.

Those with more experience, 16 years or more, reported higher rates of helpfulness when it comes to use of tablets and their effect on meaningful interactions with clinicians. For those in the 16 to 20 years of experience range, 57 percent reported that tablets “somewhat or significantly” increased meaningful interactions with clinicians. Those with 21 years or more of experience reported a similar rate, 54 percent, of meaningful interactions.

On the contrary, 55 percent of those with three to five years of experience reported that tablets were either neutral or “somewhat decreased or significantly decreased” meaningful interactions with clinicians.

A Final Note

Tablet use for educational purposes or training opportunities is strong among all age groups and years of experience.  More than 70 percent of all respondents, no matter the age or years of experience, reported they utilize a tablet for education and training.

Survey Methodology

CMR Institute’s “Tablet Device Survey” was sent to 15,000 CMR Institute students and graduates using SurveyMonkey. The survey was available from November 29th to December 9th, 2011.

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Contributed by Barbara Lockee, Professor of Instructional Design and Technology and Associate Director for Research, Virginia Tech School of Education

Advancements in mobile computing devices, especially tablet computers, have provided great potential for the delivery of educational programs: particularly to more effectively meet the needs of today’s adult learners, especially those professionals whose job requires knowledge of the most current information available.

CMR Institute does an exemplary job of leveraging instructional technology breakthroughs to support the continuous education of pharmaceutical representatives. Offering content on mobile devices demonstrates a commitment to offering professional development that specifically caters to the needs of their clients.

Designing courses for flexible delivery is another hallmark of CMR Institute programming that is reflected in their mobile technology-based offerings. Their instructional design strategies focus on providing educational content that is just-in-time and just enough, instead of overloading learners with excessive or unnecessary information.

In addition to their ability to support customized learning experiences, CMR’s mobile content also takes advantage of the various features of tablets and other portable devices to present information in formats that can enhance learning.

For example, to teach processes, such as drug absorption, the instruction includes realistic animations that demonstrate the process, supported with important conceptual information in different media types such as text or narration. These presentations more effectively convey the targeted concepts than simple textual descriptions.

Because CMR content is designed to be flexible, as well as academically sound, the courses are frequently updated to incorporate the most current information available, including late-breaking research outcomes that can enhance the representative’s ability to support his or her own clientele.

CMR Institute mobile programming clearly draws from what we know about how people learn to create learning experiences that are customized, flexible, and instructionally effective.

By providing content via mobile technologies, CMR is able to offer educational programs that contain timely information, especially recent industry developments that are critical for representative effectiveness.

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If you’re an iPad newbie and have wondered which accessories and apps are “must haves” or “nice-to-haves” when you’re on the road, check out these favorites. (All prices mentioned are as of 1.6.12 so please check.)

Accessories

First, get a good stylus. Even the under $15 Targus stylus from Wal-Mart works well.

If you are going to do a lot of writing on the iPad, get a Bluetooth keyboard. While we’ve tested a few, we’re still looking for a case/keyboard combination that isn’t too clunky.

Apps

Ideation and note taking

The Penultimate handwriting app (.99) works well, but there are some decent free notebooks too such as 7 Notes HD, UPAD lite, Handwriting and one of my favorites, neu.Notes. However, you can do EVERYTHING with EverNote (Free) and it's all in the cloud.

Whiteboard HD ($4.99) is also an option for those who like to visualize ideas.

Project management

For project management try Wunderlist (Free). It's multi-platform which appeals to me, but I'm also playing with SimpleMind+ (Free), MyProjects ($3.99), TaskPro ($1.99) and MagicalPad (.99). The last one is getting a lot of buzz right now, but we just haven't tested it enough.

Accessing and working with documents

An absolute must, Splashtop Remote ($9.99) to connect remotely to a work laptop/desktop and a network. Works flawlessly!

For Microsoft Office documents, we’ve used both Office²HD ($7.99) and QuickOffice Pro HD ($19.99) to open/edit my documents. We prefer QuickOffice by far.

We use Dropbox (Free) to move/store docs, music and photos in the cloud.

For printing, PrintCentralPro ($9.99). PrintCentralPro enables printing to all printers, wireless or otherwise.  

Travel

TripIt (Free) keeps track of your flights and itineraries. Share with colleagues or family members.

FlightAware (Free) is a great app if your flight is ever delayed. Check to see if the inbound flight is delayed (just to make sure your airline is telling the truth) and when it will land. Cool map tracks the flight on a map.

Hipmunk (Free) is also great if you’re flight is cancelled. Check to see other upcoming flights and how much they cost.

Reading the news

Flipboard

• Zite
• Read It Later

Everything else

Skype (keeps the kids happy when you’re on the road)

• Facebook, Hootsuite and Tweeted Times
• TopCamera
• Dragon Dictation
• NPR
• Network TV players - ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, TBS
• Nook
• TED
• Yammer
• PhotoShop Express
• Adobe Ideas
• Garage Band  (take your inner Led Zeppelin anywhere you go)
• Post-It^® PopNotes (digital sticky notes, very cool)
• Zappos (when you have to have that new pair of boots)
• Thomas The Tank (for the kids, of course)

Games aren’t mentioned here, because, frankly, there are too many to name. But if you haven’t tried Angry Birds (Free), make this your first download.