Using Service-Learning to Develop Health Promotion and Research Skills in Nursing Students

Abstract

Health promotion skills are a key component of most nursing education programs. While many curricula center around a singular health promotion project contained in one course, this nursing program saw the opportunity to use service-learning as a vehicle for developing a range of both health promotion and research skills. This report details a service-learning research program involving second and third year nursing students. Students conducted a community needs assessment, and designed, implemented, and evaluated health promotion programs that were developed as a result of the community needs assessment. Students collected data on the effectiveness of their programs through pre- and post-test design. Once in their statistics and research courses, students analyzed the data and prepared the data for presentation, developing their research skills. Results from the community on pre- and post-tests indicated significant gains in knowledge regarding hypertension and diabetes risk factors, prevention strategies, and intent to change behavior. Student outcome data was also collected and showed students perceived they had increases in the following skill sets: health promotion, assessment, civic engagement, and research.

International Service–Learning: An Opportunity to Engage in Cultural Competence

“…The program evaluation methods included debriefing meetings after each visit for the students to reflect on experiences and learning (Larson, Ott, & Miles, 2010). The purpose of this article is to describe three types of student experiences gained through an international service-learning project: cultural communication, cultural confidence, and cultural surprise (Bosworth et al, 2006;Reising et al, 2008;Walsh, 2003). These experiences illustrate beginning development of the constructs of cultural competency (Pretorius & Small, 2007).…”

Application of an innovative, autonomous, creative teaching modality through service-learning in a community-health nursing course

“…Most definitions of service-learning were found to be similar to the definition used by the author, "Servicelearning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities" [6] . Furthermore, a service-learning project was defined as "A collegial relationship between the academic setting and the community setting, which establishes a need for an identified activity that can be provided by students" [7] .…”

The Community Champions Program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

“…[12,13] programs have been shown to be effective when integrated with maternity nursing, community nursing, statistics and research courses. [14][15][16] Service learning has also been shown to be effective in improving inter-professional competencies between nursing and medical students. [17,18] Service learning has also been shown to be beneficial to the communities served by the students.…”

“…[19] Service learning facilitates the establishment of mutual trust between students and community members, improving outcomes [19] and providing vital services to underserved community members. [3,[15][16][17][18] The service learning model of community engagement has a significant effect on the student nurses as well as on the community.…”