Qualitative Examination of Participants' Reactions to an App‐Based Military Cultural Competence Training for Helping Professionals

There is a need to bolster military cultural competence among human service helping professionals by equipping them with foundational knowledge and evidence-based tools to serve military families. On the basis of this need, a mobile application was designed to provide military cultural competence training by delivering brief summaries of recent scholarly publications on military culture and family life. This qualitative study utilized semistructured interviews to examine 36 helping professionals' reactions to the 8-week app-based training. Guided by the Kirkpatrick Training Evaluation Model, a directed qualitative content analysis identified five themes: intentional and active engagement in the training, satisfaction with the military cultural competence training app, enhanced access and accessibility to research, relevance of the content, and affirmation of existing knowledge and established priorities. Results suggest that mobile apps may be an acceptable modality for delivering continuing education and are well-suited for helping professionals with limited time for continuing education.