Abstract
With this volume, Pedagogy in Health Promotion proudly enters its eighth year of publication. As noted by founding Editor Emeritus, Stephen Gambescia, the journal was created to fill a major gap in the dissemination of scholarly teaching practice in health promotion and public health (Gambescia, 2015a). The journal’s goal is to advance pedagogical research and practice by “catalyze[ing] professional and scientific exchange among education scholars and practitioners in public health and health promotion” (Auld & Bishop, 2015, p. 5). I underscore this purpose by reminding our readers and contributors of the journal’s subtitle: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. In short, Pedagogy in Health Promotion aims to improve teaching practice and its outcomes by means of pedagogical scholarship. This focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning (known as SoTL) in health promotion and public health guides the journal’s review and selection of submissions. We aim to publish high quality scholarly papers that inform teaching research and practice and provide replicable lessons for the community of health promotion and public health educators.
A question many would-be SoTL scholars ask is: Where and how to start? Over the years, Pedagogy in Health Promotion has published a number of editorials and commentaries that offer perspectives for shifting teaching endeavors into the scholarly domain. I encourage would-be contributors to investigate this helpful archive. A good place to start is the piece summarizing the history and evolution of SoTL by McBride and Kanekar (2015) who provide a succinct characterization of the how and why of SoTL: “To be scholarly, good teaching must also include assessment and evidence gathering, be informed not only by the latest ideas in the field but also by current ideas about teaching the field, and be open to peer collaboration and review” (p. 10). They suggest that those new to SoTL can begin by incorporating results of pedagogical research into their courses and program curricula. For ideas on pursuing pedagogical scholarship to help advance the field of health promotion, read Glanz’s thoughtful commentary (Glanz, 2017).
A defining element of all scholarship is the ability to make meaningful contributions to the existing knowledge base. This presents particular challenges for pedagogical scholarship, which often is based on (very) small numbers of students, courses, and institutions and relies on observational designs. We can look to qualitative research as a guide for surmounting some of these methodological hurdles. As discussed by Gambescia (2015b) and Cavalcanti de Aguiar (2017), rich qualitative descriptions of pedagogical contexts, settings, and processes are essential for helping other educators understand and master good teaching practice. Indeed, explanatory qualitative scholarship may be of greater relevance and utility than research focused mainly on measuring a narrow set of outcomes in a limited study population.
This issue of Pedagogy in Health Promotion aims to contribute to the advancement of pedagogical scholarship in health promotion and public health by providing additional inspiration for engaging in SoTL. We lead the issue with an editorial by Henderson and Sendall (2021) from the Pedagogy in Health Promotion Editorial Board. They encourage us to think of ourselves as educational scholars and to recognize that most of us are already applying some form of scholarship in our teaching practice. They emphasize the importance of grounding pedagogical scholarship in existing theory, frameworks, and evidence, and exploring other disciplines to expand our worldview of how to engage in SoTL. The authors of the editorial describe the scope of pedagogical scholarship and provide references to examples previously published in Pedagogy in Health Promotion. They offer scholarly guidance to prospective authors on how to approach the journal’s various submission categories comprising Original Research, Descriptive Best Practices, and Perspectives on Pedagogy. The editorial is essential reading for educators in health promotion and public health who aim to advance their pedagogical scholarship to the next level.
The issue includes a number of exemplars to encourage you to engage in SoTL in your own teaching research and practice. These articles also serve to disseminate some fine pedagogical research and teaching best practices. The Original Research and Descriptive Best Practices papers in this issue fulfill the scholarly criteria of contributing to the knowledge base and employing systematic inquiry and robust study designs to explore important pedagogical questions. Both types of papers in this issue provide useful descriptions of course designs and curricula, helping to inform readers of the significance of the findings and their applicability to general teaching practice.
Several Original Research articles in this issue offer examples of research designs appropriate for addressing SoTL questions. The study by Early et al. (2021) applied a valid and reliable instrument from the literature to compare eHealth literacy in a large sample of 4-year and 2-year college students. They found important differences by background characteristics of students, and concluded that higher education curricula need to be strengthened to improve students’ eHealth literacy. Foutch et al. (2020) employed random assignment to compare the effectiveness of case-based versus lecture-based learning approaches in an epidemiology course for optometry students. While no pre-posttest differences were found, the authors’ discussion of the study’s limitations is a useful lesson in the challenges of conducting SoTL research. Kennedy et al. (2021) included multiple cohorts and observations across four points in time to examine learning outcomes in a social justice training program for youth-serving professionals. The course, delivered through a flipped virtual format, helped develop a community of practice among youth-serving public health and social service workers.
The first year of any course or program can serve as a pilot, providing the opportunity to methodically examine important learning processes and outcomes that can inform future efforts. Such exploratory work is well-suited for a Descriptive Best Practices piece, as shown in the paper by Gaydos et al. (2020). The authors report on a pilot study of an online interprofessional education module for executive-format public health students. Their paper is a good model for using pilot research to identify ways to improve a course, and they offer a number of useful recommendations for online education in general.
As noted above, qualitative approaches can be particularly useful in SoTL research. Several papers in this issue demonstrate the benefit of a mixed-methods design, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative techniques, to evaluate a curriculum or pedagogical method. The study by Coulter and Onufer (2021) used mixed methods to examine the hypothesis that student-led activities can lead to greater student accountability and engagement in an implementation science course. Although the sample size was small, the authors grounded the work in previous pedagogical research on active learning and they give detailed descriptions of the teaching approach, curriculum, and methods used to assess the course. The evaluation incorporated complementary quantitative and qualitative data, providing a comprehensive and in-depth picture of students’ learning outcomes and perspectives on the active learning approach. Biello et al. (2020) used mixed methods to identify ways to enhance their course, which employed problem-based learning. Quantitative findings provided student feedback on the helpfulness of each course component, and focus groups with students elucidated the perceived benefits of problem-based learning. This Descriptive Best Practices paper is an example of how to report exploratory work in order to offer useful information for educators interested in using a particular pedagogical technique.
As noted in this issue’s editorial, SoTL can involve testing theories, using theory to buttress teaching practice, or exploring new solutions to educational challenges (Henderson & Sendall, 2021). An example of theory-driven research can be found in the Original Research article by Blavos et al. (2020), who use the health belief and transtheoretical models to examine faculty perceptions of health education and public health certifications in a cross-sectional survey of 90 undergraduate programs. The findings yield valuable information on perceived benefits and barriers to the promotion of certification by faculty. In their Descriptive Best Practices piece, Callaghan-Koru and Aqil (2020) provide a blueprint for applying Bloom’s taxonomy of learning processes to the design of undergraduate public health courses. They discuss how communicating the theoretical basis for course activities promotes metacognitive knowledge among students. Young et al. (2021) report on an innovative program in a school of public health offering faculty monetary incentives for effective teaching. Evaluation findings suggest that the incentives were associated with improvements in course evaluation response rates and in student assessments of teaching effectiveness.
A major aim of this current issue of Pedagogy in Health Promotion is to encourage and support our readers in engaging in educational scholarship. An important standard for all papers published in the journal is clear demonstration of the work’s lessons and significance for public health and health promotion education. SoTL by definition is an applied science, and the ultimate goal is to advance the quality of education in our field. Whether by presenting original research designed to produce generalizable findings or by disseminating practice-based models, the focus of Pedagogy in Health Promotion is on sharing scholarship that serves to guide health promotion and public health educators in their teaching practice, and that meaningfully contributes to the goal of innovative and successful pedagogy.
