Work In Progress: The Effect of Time on Student Attitudes and Interests Regarding Global Health Following an International Field Experience

A new global health course was recently developed and implemented at Western New England University. The course combines a traditional lecture component with a unique field experience that exposes students to healthcare challenges facing a foreign country. In order to assess the long-term impact of the new course on student attitudes and interests regarding global health, a set of surveys was administered to students at the completion of the course and one year postcourse. The results from analysis of the surveys showed no statistically significant changes between student responses on the post-course and one year survey regarding knowledge, confidence in developing solutions, and interest in pursuing further studies or careers in global health. Additionally, student comments on the one year survey reflected high levels of enthusiasm for the subject and provided insight into the impact of the experience on the students over the period of one year. Background Recently, there has been significant interest amongst engineering programs regarding opportunities that develop and enhance the global perspectives of undergraduate students. This interest is in part to address ABET student outcomes criteria 3h (the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context) and 3j (a knowledge of contemporary issues). The interest also reflects a response to the growing need for engineers that are able to develop solutions in a range of unfamiliar environments, including foreign countries and cultures. Experiential learning opportunities have been shown to impact student learning and attitudes in a variety of subject areas, including global perspectives. However, limited information exists as to whether the learning experience has an impact on the student over a long period of time. For example, do students maintain the same levels of interest in subject matter over the period of one year following an experience? Or does the initial increase in interest quickly disappear as students return to their daily lives, academic programs, and professional pursuits? In this work, we report preliminary results from a long-term study of students who participated in an experiential learning opportunity involving global health. The students in this study (N = 13) were enrolled in ILP 296 – Global Health & Technology, which was offered at Western New England University during the Spring 2011 semester. This course introduces students to a variety of concepts related to global health, including major diseases, socioeconomics, and emerging technologies for diagnosis and treatment. At the end of the semester, the students P ge 23386.2 completed a 12 day field experience in Guatemala, which allowed them to investigate healthcare in the region through visits to medical facilities. During these visits, the students completed a needs assessment for the healthcare facilities, with the eventual goal of developing projects to be implemented through the engineering senior design curriculum. Upon finishing the field experience, the students completed a post-course survey that was designed to measure their interests and attitudes regarding global health issues. When compared with responses on a precourse survey, the findings showed that the course and field experience resulted in increased student knowledge in global health issues, confidence in developing solutions to global health problems, and interest in pursuing further studies and careers in this area. Present Study In order to measure whether student attitudes changed over time following completion of the course, an identical set of post-course survey questions was administered one year after the completion of the field experience. The surveys, which were approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) at Western New England University, consisted of 5-choice Likert questions that were analyzed using a two-tailed, unpaired t-test with a significance level of 0.05. Students also had the opportunity to comment on the impact the course had on them at the academic, professional, and/or personal level through a free response question. The results from the analysis are shown in Figure 1. The results from the surveys completed one year after the field experience showed no statistically significant changes in student reported knowledge (p=0.09), confidence in developing solutions (p=0.473), and interest in pursuing further studies (p=0.505) or careers in global health (p=0.233). Figure 1. Results from student surveys (Likert scale 0-4) comparing responses on post-course and one year survey: (a) student level of knowledge regarding global health issues; (b) student confidence in their ability to develop solutions to global health issues; (c) student level of interest in pursuing further studies/training regarding global health issues; and (d) student likelihood in pursuing a career in the area of global health. 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 1 St ud en t R es po ns es (0 -4 L ik er t S ca le ) Post (a) 1 Yr Post (b) 1 Yr Post (c) 1 Yr Post (d) 1 Yr