Teaching at the Intersection of Community Engagement and Program Evaluation.

Area of Science:

• Public Health Education
• Program Evaluation
• Community-Engaged Learning

Background:

• Preservice education for public health professionals often includes community-engaged learning.
• Program evaluation is a critical function for evidence-based practice in public health.
• Limited literature exists on preparing professionals for community-engaged evaluation work.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address the gap in understanding how to prepare public health students for community-engaged evaluation.
• To analyze student reflections from a service-learning integrated program evaluation course.
• To identify effective course design elements for community-engaged learning.

Main Methods:

• Deductive analysis of 146 graduate students' "key learning experience" essays.
• Utilized educational frameworks based on andragogic principles and significant learning experiences.
• Course incorporated service-learning to teach program evaluation.

Main Results:

• Community engagement was identified as a key element of the students' learning experience.
• 42.5% of student reflections specifically mentioned community engagement.
• Other memorable topics constituted 57.5% of the reflections.

Conclusions:

• A program evaluation course integrating service-learning is a viable method for teaching community engagement.
• Service-learning effectively prepares public health students for community-engaged evaluation.
• Educators can leverage these findings to refine course design and implementation.