This study examined the validity of using physicians’ self‐assessed needs, relevance and motivation to learn about clinical topics as a means for setting objectives and priorities for continuing medical education (CME) programmes. In an initial survey family doctors were asked to rate their need, relevance and motivation to learn about 120 different clinical topics. Eight months later, the same population was sent a second mail survey asking respondents to indicate if they had learned about a set of sixteen topics taken from the initial survey and, if so, in what kind of learning activities. Eight of the sixteen topics were highly rated and eight were low rated in the initial survey. In terms of actual participation of family doctors, self‐assessed motivation to learn exhibited a strong positive relationship with actual participation. Both self‐assessed need and relevance were negative to only moderately positive in their association with actual participation. This evidence contributed to the value of using self‐assessed motivation as an indicator of future participation of family doctors in CME and questioned the value of using self‐assessed need and relevance as indicators of future patterns of participation.