HSC 405: Health Education Evaluation and Measurement

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course find open-access materials for the content of HSC 405

Common Course ID: HSC 405
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open-access resource bank is being utilized in a public health course for undergraduate students by Dr. Jessica Liu at CSULB. The open-access resource bank provides no-cost readings related to all steps of program evaluation. The main motivation to adopt open-access readings for this course was to reduce the cost of materials for students, as textbooks are quite expensive. Most student access these open-access readings online.

Health Education Evaluation and Measurement (HSC 405)

Brief Description of course highlights:  

Research designs, standardized measurements, data collection, analysis, and reporting are used to develop evaluation skills to assess program outcomes. Program activities promoting behavior change in communities, organizations, groups and individuals are evaluated.

Student population: Undergraduate Health Science students; Prerequisites: A grade of “C” or better in H SC 403 and H SC 421. Open to Health Science majors only.

Learning or student outcomes:   

Shared HSC Major Outcomes (emphasized in this course)

During the program, students will develop foundational, professional skills necessary to succeed in the dynamic environment of the allied health fields and graduate-level academic programs, including:  

1. Interpret in-depth information from relevant sources representing various points of view/approaches for health information.  
2. Develop written and oral communication skills in order to serve as an effective health resource person as well as facilitate development and maintenance of collaborative relationships.  
3. Demonstrate critical thinking and problem-solving skills to enhance program development, implementation, and evaluation efforts related to priority public health issues.  
4. Interpret research and related qualitative and quantitative data to promote evidence-based practice.  
5. Demonstrate cultural competence necessary to work within diversity and account for contextual influences that impact health equity.  
6. Demonstrate management and leadership skills to integrate research and practice to inform public health policy development.  

Content Based Student Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of the course the student will be able to:

1. Identify four major types of evaluation.
2. Assess the impact of demographic characteristics, culture, ESL, SES, special needs on health promotion and risk reduction programs.
3. Demonstrate the principles and steps of program planning as they relate to the evaluation of interventions concerning community health, and health education.
4. Develop quantitative and qualitative approaches to monitor program content, methods, materials, and media 
5. Develop procedures to conduct an evaluation plan of a health education program (including process/impact/outcome evaluation).
6. Apply the basic principles of instrument development to select valid and reliable assessments.
7. Explain the relationship among internal and external validity and evaluation design.
8. Identify common designs used in evaluation of health education and health promotion interventions.
9. Describe how sampling should match the purposes of both the health program and the program evaluation.
10. Explain how a representative sample can increase the value of the results of health evaluations by increasing generalizability.
11. Identify commonly used indexes, scales, and typologies in the evaluation of health education programs.
12. Develop an Evaluation Budget and Justification.
13. Construct an evaluation plan which includes an executive summary, evaluation activity description, description of how evaluation activities support interventions, evaluation methods, data collection methods, data analysis, evaluation costs, and how findings will be disseminated.

Syllabus and Sample assignments: Please see accompanying Word document for table of open-access readings.

Collection of Open-Access Readings, Textbooks, and Articles

Brief Description: We found a collection of various peer-reviewed articles, CDC and World Bank authored textbooks, and more that are free and provided detailed and high quality content for this course.

Due to the large number of collected resources for this course, I will provide an example of one open-access textbook that we found:

https://www.cdc.gov/asthma/program_eval/PlantingSeeds_eTextbook-508.pdf

Authors: CDC

Student access: Free Online PDF

The previous traditional textbook costs $150+, whereas all of the open-access readings from our collection that we found are free.

License: Creative Commons license. For more information on CC license go to https://creativecommons.org/

OER Adoption Process

The previous textbook for this course could cost students upwards of $150 just to purchase the textbook. I know that the cost of the textbook alone might present a financial burden on some or most of my students. Thus, I wanted to find ways to reduce or eliminate this textbook cost for my HSC 405 students.

I worked with a team that included a CSULB Librarian (Michelle DeMars) and Instructional Designer (Preston Wingrove) to go line by line through the course content for HSC 405 and find relevant open-access and free readings that would still deliver quality learning material to the students. We utilized CSULB OER search engines and browsed websites to find these no-cost online materials.

I learned how to use all of the CSULB Library resources, which was especially useful to me as a new faculty member who is still learning about all of the possible resources that CSULB has to offer to the learning community. I have even showed some of these resources to my current students, such as how to access peer-reviewed scientific research articles.

We did not run into many challenges while working on this project, and that just shows how doable it is to find high quality open-access and free readings, especially in the field of public health.

Jessica Liu, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor, CSULB

I am a public health professor at CSULB. I teach health equity, program evaluation, biostatistics, and capstone/thesis courses.

Course Numbers: HSC 507, 407, 405, 403, 626, 590, 724

Please visit this link for my CSULB faculty bio and a photo:
https://www.csulb.edu/college-of-health-human-services/health-science/page/jessica-liu

As a first-generation college student myself, I strive to create learning environments for students that build community and comfortable learning environments. I want all students to have access to the resources they need to have a quality education. I also want students to have fun while they are learning!

My research interests are adolescent and young adult health and substance use prevention.