Course report

Course code: INTH302

Course title: Epidemiology

Semester:
Autumn 2017

Department:
Centre for international health, Department of global public health and primary care

Course coordinators:
Cecilie Svanes and Hallgeir Kismul

Approved in:

Date:

Introduction

Learning outcomes:

On completion of the course the student should have the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge	Skills	General competence
The student is able to: - describe basic epidemiological concepts and epidemiological study designs - discuss how bias and confounding may influence research results - discuss causality in epidemiological studies	The student is able to: - plan an epidemiologic study, under supervision - measure disease occurrence - measure risk associations - recognize how confounders are accounted for in analysis - justify and explain choices of different epidemiological research designs	The student is able to critically evaluate and interpret results from epidemiological research presented in scientific and popular media

statistics:

Number of students: 35

Number of students completing the course: 35

Grade distribution ->:

Or ->:

A: 8

B: 20

C: 5

D: 1

E: 1

F: 0

Pass:

Fail:

summary of the STUDENT Evaluation (main points):

· Practical implementation – The students found the course to be well administrated. Mitt UiB was assessed to be a useful platform, ensuring good communication between students and course coordinators. Rooms allocated for group work were unsuitable.

· Students’ evaluations and feedback – Students overall evaluation of the course was reasonably good 3-4 (scale 1-5). Their response to the quality of the lectures varied from very good to satisfactory. They were very content with the online learning tool Epiville and the recommended literature. There were very different opinions about the group work. In groups the students used the Strobe Statement to review epidemiological articles with some students finding this too difficult. Most students found Epiville suitable for group work, while others would have preferred to work individually with this tool. The course content is comprehensive and most students thought that the course should have been longer. They were satisfied with the lecturer and particularly content with Catherine Schwinger and Hallgeir Kismul

Course coordinators evaluation:

· Teaching and assessment methods: The course consists of too many traditional lectures and a better system for interactive learning needs to be developed. Instead of having daily lectures from 08 30 to 12 00, this should be split, starting with a 45 minutes lecture followed by a session with individual student work supervised by the lecturer. Possibly, the number of lecturers should be reduced. The use of Mitt Uib could be better utilised by for example uploading more learning material and using it more extensively for submission of student group work.

· Curriculum: The curriculum is found to be appropriate

· Information and documentation: Mitt UiB is a good tool for information sharing and documentation.

· Grade distribution: Generally, there were many students who appeared to have a high level of understanding, in agreement with the grade distribution.

· Localities/equipment: The locations are inappropriate with the auditorium not fitting for interactive teaching/group work while the rooms allocated for group were unsuitable.

· Field trip (if relevant): not relevant

· Changes done during the course: none

Goals and objectives for next evaluation period – improvements to be made:

More time – The course in statistics HELSTA should be moved so that the epidemiology course is given 3 full weeks. If this is impossible, the course content should be reduced. The course structure should be modified in order to facilitate more interactive learning. The group work sessions need to be better organized and only elements from the STROBE statement should be used. The course should be organized in way that it better allows for students’ preparations before the lectures. Epiville can be used as a tool for students’ preparation. The teacher ought to provide their Power point presentations before the lectures.