Applying theory to practice in an undergraduate public health course

Herrington & Herrington (2006) argue that for “authentic learning” to take place, a physical environment is required in which to apply subject knowledge. Teaching staff undertook an initiative to afford such an opportunity. The initiative was based on using “The Island” (www.maths.uq.edu.au/island), a non-immersive self-contained environment populated by virtual humans developed as an educational tool for teaching and learning statistics in large classes (Bulmer & Engstrom, 2005, Bulmer, 2010). The students undertook the compulsory summative assessment task of developing a costed plan for an upgrade to the Island’s health system. Three, one-hour tutorial sessions were allocated in the course timetable. The students, working in groups, visited The Island where they were to undertake a lifecycle of activities relevant to both the subject matter and its real world application, i.e. assessment of health care needs, prioritisation of public health goals and implementation and evaluation of health intervention programs. This involved undertaking specific tasks contained in a student workbook, e.g. an assessment of the Island’s healthcare workforce. There were positive changes in student perception on a five-point scale, with a positive variation in mean values ranging from 0.05 to 0.55. An additional assessment item increased the possibility for students to demonstrate graduate attributes. Course learning objectives guided the development of survey items which were also related directly to the Health Services Planning and Evaluation Lifecycle. Course grades were, on average, higher than both semester and cumulative grade point averages, with individual variances spread across the range of levels of student performance.