The Real-World Writing Project for Public Health Students: A Description and Evaluation

Abstract

Writing is a key skill for Public Health students, but instructors are not necessarily trained in how to teach writing. The Real-World Writing Project requires students to produce a writing project proposed by a community partner, for example, a report. The project includes multiple assignments that incorporate recommended characteristics for effective assigned writing. This article describes implementation of this project in two Public Health undergraduate courses at a large Midwestern University, including the type of products students produced, the number and type of community partners who participated, and student and community partner evaluations. Anonymous online evaluation surveys were distributed to community partners and students. We received responses from 19 community partners and 53 students. Partners were satisfied with the quality of 94% of the student products and were satisfied with their overall experience with the Real-World Writing Project (mean rating 5.14 on 6-point Likert-type scale, where 6 = extremely satisfied). Partners rated 85% of students as having satisfactory communication with them and were satisfied with the professionalism of 94% of students. Ninety-four percent of students reported being satisfied with the final product they produced and 84% of students indicated that working with their community partner was “very easy.” Students reported that the Real-World Writing Project was beneficial to them versus a more traditional assignment (mean response of 8.0 [SD 2.3], where 1 represented the least and 10 represented the most satisfaction). Future work will include an evaluation of the project within graduate-level courses.