Measures of Success: Exploring Student Approaches to Learning Public Health

Abstract

The goal of public health education consists of equipping competent future public health professionals with the skills necessary to effectively convert knowledge to meet current and future public health challenges. Although great focus has been placed on topics and skills that are relevant to undergraduate degree curricula in public health, little effort has been directed at identifying student perceptions about metacognitive strategies that best help them learn and recall public health skills or ideas. There is also little investigation of factors that contribute to students’ success in the field of public health. The purpose of this article is threefold: first, to describe common themes and gaps pertaining to public health undergraduates’ awareness of potent learning strategies; second, to characterize students’ definition of success in the field of public health; and third, to provide instructors with valuable information that may be used to enhance the design of classroom learning environments, course content, content delivery methods, and course assessments.