LaVelle John M, Espelien Doris A
University of Minnesota Twin Cities, 100 Church St SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455 (
University of Minnesota Twin Cities, Minneapolis.
Prev Chronic Dis. 2025 Jun 5;22:E24. doi: 10.5888/pcd22.240405.
The preservice education of public health professionals often includes thorough, community-engaged learning experiences. One critical element of public health work is program evaluation - an essential function for supporting evidence-based practice. However, the literature on how to prepare future public health professionals to integrate community-engaged evaluation work is lean, although lessons may be learned from the literature on service-learning. Analyzing students' reflections in their "key learning experience" essays from an introductory program evaluation course incorporating service-learning may address this gap, helping educators identify the most effective elements of their course design and implementation. This illustrative evaluation used existing educational frameworks grounded in andragogic principles and significant learning experiences to deductively analyze 146 graduate students' reflections on their service-learning course experience. Deductive analysis suggested that community engagement is a key element of students' learning experience. Sixty-two (42.5%) student reflections were about community engagement, whereas 84 (57.5%) were about other topics the students found memorable. A program evaluation course that integrates service-learning may be a viable vehicle for teaching public health students about community engagement.
公共卫生专业人员的职前教育通常包括全面的、社区参与式学习体验。公共卫生工作的一个关键要素是项目评估——这是支持循证实践的一项基本功能。然而，关于如何让未来的公共卫生专业人员做好准备，以融入社区参与式评估工作的文献却很少，尽管可以从服务学习的文献中吸取一些经验教训。分析学生在一门纳入服务学习的项目评估入门课程的“关键学习体验”文章中的反思，可能会填补这一空白，帮助教育工作者确定其课程设计和实施中最有效的要素。这项示例性评估使用了基于成人教育原则和重要学习体验的现有教育框架，对146名研究生关于他们服务学习课程体验的反思进行了演绎分析。演绎分析表明，社区参与是学生学习体验的关键要素。62名（42.5%）学生的反思是关于社区参与的，而84名（57.5%）学生的反思是关于他们认为难忘的其他主题。一门整合了服务学习的项目评估课程可能是向公共卫生专业学生传授社区参与知识的一种可行方式。
