Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, Old Road Campus, Old Road, Oxford OX3 7LF, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
Hum Resour Health. 2011 Oct 21;9:26. doi: 10.1186/1478-4491-9-26.
Low and middle-income countries suffer an ongoing deficit of trained public health workers, yet optimizing postgraduate education to best address these training needs remains a challenge. Much international public health education literature has focused on global capacity building and/or the description of innovative programmes, but less on quality and appropriateness.
The MSc in Global Health Science at the University of Oxford is a relatively new, full-time one year master's degree in international public health. The programme is intended for individuals with significant evidence of commitment to health in low and middle income countries. The intake is small, with only about 25 students each year, but they are from diverse professional and geographical backgrounds. Given the diversity of their backgrounds, we wanted to determine the extent to which student background influenced their perceptions of the quality of their learning experience and their learning outcomes. We conducted virtual or face-to-face semi-structured individual interviews with students who had graduated from the course at least one year previously. Of the 2005 to 2007 intake years, 52 of 63 graduates (83%) were interviewed. We used thematic analysis to analyze the data, then linked results to student characteristics.
The findings from the evaluation suggested that all MSc GHS graduates who spoke with us, irrespective of background, appreciated the curriculum structure drawing on the strengths of a small, diverse student group, and the contribution the programme had made to their breadth of understanding and their careers. This evaluation also demonstrated the feasibility of an educational evaluation conducted several years after programme completion and when graduates were 'in the field'. This is important in ensuring international public health programmes are relevant to the day-to-day work of public health practitioners and researchers in low and middle-income countries.
Feedback from students, when they had either resumed their positions 'in the field' or pursued further training, was useful in identifying valuable and positive aspects of the programme and also in identifying areas for further action and development by the programme's management and by individual teaching staff.
中低收入国家一直面临着训练有素的公共卫生工作者短缺的问题，但如何优化研究生教育以最好地满足这些培训需求仍然是一个挑战。许多国际公共卫生教育文献都侧重于全球能力建设和/或创新项目的描述，但对质量和适宜性的关注较少。
牛津大学全球健康科学硕士课程是一个相对较新的全日制一年制国际公共卫生硕士课程。该课程面向在中低收入国家有明显致力于卫生事业的个人。招生人数较少，每年只有约 25 名学生，但他们来自不同的专业和地理背景。鉴于他们背景的多样性，我们想确定学生背景在多大程度上影响他们对学习体验质量和学习成果的看法。我们对至少在课程结束一年前毕业的学生进行了虚拟或面对面的半结构化个人访谈。在 2005 年至 2007 年的入学年份中，共有 63 名毕业生中的 52 名（83%）接受了采访。我们使用主题分析来分析数据，然后将结果与学生特征联系起来。
评估结果表明，与我们交谈的所有 MSc GHS 毕业生，无论背景如何，都赞赏课程结构充分利用了一个多样化的小群体学生的优势，以及该课程对他们的理解广度和职业发展的贡献。这项评估还证明了在课程结束多年后，当毕业生“在实地”进行教育评估的可行性。这对于确保国际公共卫生方案与中低收入国家公共卫生从业人员和研究人员的日常工作相关非常重要。
学生在“实地”恢复工作或继续深造后的反馈有助于确定该方案有价值和积极的方面，也有助于确定该方案的管理层和个别教师人员在进一步采取行动和发展方面的领域。
