Evaluating a community-based multiprofessional course in community health.

Area of Science:

• Community Health Education
• Service-Learning Pedagogy
• Interdisciplinary Studies

Background:

• Traditional classroom lectures may not fully engage students in community health topics.
• Experiential learning approaches offer potential benefits for understanding public health principles.
• Service-learning combines academic study with community service for enhanced learning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess student reception of a community health course utilizing a small-group, interdisciplinary, service-learning model.
• To compare student preferences for this experiential approach versus traditional lectures.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of student evaluations from a 3-year period (1994-1997).
• Review of course feedback focusing on the small-group, service-learning methodology.

Main Results:

• Student evaluations of the community health course demonstrated improvement over the three years.
• A significant majority of students (60-76%) favored the small-group, experiential learning over lectures.
• Individual small group ratings varied, with some groups highly satisfied and others reporting inadequate experiences.

Conclusions:

• Community health courses are optimally delivered through in-community experiences rather than solely in classrooms.
• The small-group approach can lead to varied outcomes influenced by community receptivity and instructor skill.
• Further research into optimizing interdisciplinary service-learning in community health is warranted.