Stop-related questions, with those related directly to foundation and continuing education making up the majority (75%). Seventy-five percent of comments from the CE room were those responding to Stop or More questions, while only a single top scoring comment from the School and CE room were in response to More and MUNK: MASSAGE EDUCATION STAKEHOLDER VIEWS Table 6. Top 45 Scoring Comments per Question Type and Room (n=45) Question Room Comment Start CE Self-care classes/ergonomics Employer Higher pay for degrees/education beyond the basics Mentorship opportunities School Increase massage program hours and length of program Focusing on self-care. Instructors they teach what they live (emotional and energetic) Created higher Ed pathway from AAS, to BS to MS to PhD Ed Promote teacher cert. for their instructors Professional attire and behavior Different CE CE provider teacher education Stop inventing your own technique Employer Reciprocity of licensure bet[ween] states Support research efforts Offer benefits More cash for therapists w/ specialized training School More extensive internships/externships/clinic hours(supervised) Accreditation is the norm Don’t pass everyone More CE People skills diversity of options standardized one approval Business CE’s practice More EB research integrated in course material Apprenticeship for specialization(sports) More evidence based content Providers attend ongoing CE programs improve teaching skills Employer Affiliated with health care environment Principle based learning vs. technique-based learning Therapist friendly scheduling Mentoring training program 1st 3 years Build bridges MD and Hospitals School More critical and creative/thinking skills integrated into curriculum Stop CE Stop random regulating (CE providers) non-portability of CE credits between states Recertification need to be less complicated Inter-organizational fighting about CE oversight Stop online hands on instruction Approving everything Stop approving unqualified instructors/courses like online unsupervised practice Employer Under paying therapists Overworking therapists (no breaks and 7 hours of massage) Booking massage on the hour (every hour) Selling product requirements School Dumbing down the curriculum Ignoring evidence-based research Inconsistent grading or passing students that don’t meet the requirements Unqualified instructors in classroom (no experience training teaching skills Moving students to T.A. and teaching roles prematurely Training for less than ELAP standard 36 International Journal of Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork—Volume 12, Number 1, March 2019 massage experience averaging more than 20 years and an average of five related affiliations, many exercise participants are and/or have been massage therapists, business owners, school owners, instructors, and CE providers. This breadth of experience contributed to insightful and direct comments in general and those deemed most important (top scoring). It should not go unrecognized that while Stop comments made up the smallest proportion of total comments (19%), comments responding to Stop questions made up the largest proportion of the top scoring comments (36%). Top scoring Stop proportions would have been even higher had Stop-related comments recorded in other question categorizations (i.e., “Stop inventing your own technique,” and “Don’t pass everyone,” were responses to Different questions) been included. High top scoring Stop comments such as stop … “online hands on instruction,” “approving everything,” “under paying [and “overworking”] therapists,” “dumbing down the curriculum,” “ignoring evidence based research,” “inconsistent grading or passing students that don’t meet the requirements,” and “unqualified instructors in classroom” may highlight a unified frustration for various massage stakeholders in the way aspects of the massage profession are currently operating, particularly in relation to foundation and continuing education which each had 38% of the top scoring Stop comments (75% total). Top scoring Stop-focused comments from the School room seemed focused on elevating assessment standards for students and instructors. Start comments made up over a quarter and second-highest proportion of total comments, but had the smallest proportion (18%) of the highest scoring comments, perhaps suggesting stakeholders feeling it more important to improve what is already being done rather than beginning new things in these areas. Like the Stop focused comments, those top scoring Start comments from the School room also seemed focused on assessment and standards improvements for students and instructors. Two specific top scoring comments from the Employer-focused room highlighted stakeholders feelings that more alignment with medical-related health care was important to progress the massage field in a positive way: Employers should be more “affiliated with health-care environment” and building more bridges to/with “MD[s] and [h]ospitals.” These sentiments certainly support the field’s progression “direction” towards professional alignment to work with, and in, medical health-care settings and practice. A limiting factor in this trajectory, however, is likely