Delivering Professional Development in Suicide Prevention

Abstract

Online learning has emerged as a new technology for professional development for secondary school teachers and staff, including administration and nonclinical counselors. It is unknown if suicide prevention can be taught and learned effectively in an online learning modality. A quasi-experimental pre–post design study compared suicide prevention knowledge of 197 secondary public school teachers, administrators, guidance counselors, and staff in a traditional 2-hour in-person training versus a self-paced Web-based online training. Both training modalities led to a statistically significant increase in knowledge; however, knowledge acquisition was significantly greater among individuals in the online training. Age of the participants moderated the relationship across the two training modalities. The majority of participants reported the online training as useful and relevant, and 100% would recommend the online suicide prevention training to others. Online trainings are just as effective in teaching emotionally sensitive content such as suicide prevention as traditional in-person trainings.