1. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF HEALTH EDUCATION
AIMS
•
Helps the community to assimilate the body,if appropriate health education is passed.
•
Expose the community to a variety of activities and experience related to well being.
•
Help individuals develop a sound understanding of their total development and enable
them to attain positive self-images.
•
Provide opportunities for students so that they make personal decisions related to their
intellectual,physical and emotional development.
•
Allow students to experience social relations,that will encourage desirable
behaviour,leadership and cooperation with others.
•
To enhance mental health of sttudents.
OBJECTIVES
1. FOR LEANERS
•
A positive attitude towards physical fitness and good health.
•
A personal value system and satisfactory relationship with peers.
•
Increased self-awareness and positive self concept.
•
Independence,interdependence and a sense of responsibility.
•
An understanding of human sexuality.
•
An understanding of appropriate factual information and concepts.
2. FOR PATIENTS AND PUBLIC
•
To increase public awareness that diseases are significant public problems.
•
To increase public awareness of symptoms and signs of disease.
•
To improve the knowledge and attitudes of patients about detection,treatment and
control of disease.
•
To promote the family and community educational material essential for positive
2. lifestyle habits.
•
To create public awareness about the ill-effects of alcohol,smoking and drugs etc.
3.FOR HEALTH PROFESSIONALS
•
To increase knowledge,attitude and skills of all health professionals regarding
signs,symptoms and management strategies for health hazards to improve disease
control.
•
To encourage health professionals to treat patients carefully.
•
To develop resource and material for use by professionals.
•
To promote research all over the world to curb health hazards.
•
To encourage continuing educational programmes on accurate information on diagnosis
and treatment of diseases.
DOMAINS OF LEARNING THAT CAN BE ADDRESSED IN HEALTH EDUCATION
1.Cognitive Domain
This cognitive domain deals with the recall or recognition of knowledge and the development of
intellectual abilities and skills(Bloom,1969,p.7).It is devided into a hierachical classification of
behaviour that Bloom refers to as a taxonomy.Learners master each behaviour in the following
order of difficulty;knowledge,comprehension,application,analysis,synthesis and evaluation
where;
•
knowledge-recalling facts,methods and procedures.
•
comprehension-combining recall and understanding;to grasp the meaning of
information.
•
application-using infortion in new,specific and concrete situation.
•
analysis-distinguishing between parts of information and understanding relationship
among them.
•
synthesis-putting parts of information in a unified whole.
•
evaluation-judging the value of ideas,procedures and methods by using appropriate
criteria.
For health education to be effective,it is important to assess the cognitive abilities of the learner
so that the nurse's expectations and plans are directed towards the correct level.Teaching above
or below the client's level of understanding may lead to frustration and discouragement.
3. 2.AFFECTIVE DOMAIN
•
The affective describes changes in attitudes,values and appriciations.In affective
learning,nurses influence what clients,families and students think,value and
feel.Because the values and attitudes of nurses may differ from those of clients,it is
important to listen carefully to detect clues to feelings that would influence learning.For
example,people from different cultures value fooods in different ways.Some cultural
groups eat no meats,others et no pork or beef.Therefore it is important to know how
people think and feel about health-related topics before teaching begins.
•
As in cognitive learning,a series of steps comprises affective learning,where this steps
are correlated together with those in the cognitive domain;
Affective Domain
Cognitive Domain
1.Learner recieves information
-Knowledge
2.Learner responds
-Comprehension
3.Learner values information
-Analysis
4.Learner organises information
-Evaluation
by adopting behaviour consistent
with new value.
It is difficult to change deep-seated values,attitudes,beliefs and interests.To
make such changes,people need support and encouragement from those
around them.Praise is helpful.Group support also reinforces learning new
behaviours.
3.PSYCHOMOTOR DOMAIN
The psychomotor domain includes the perfomance of skills that require
neuromuscular coordination.Community health clients clients are taught a
variety of psychomotor skills such as giving injections,taking blood
pressure,measuring blood sugar level,bathing infants,changing dressings
and walking on crutches.
4. Three conditions must be met before psychomotor learninng occurs;(1)the
learner must have the necessary ability,(2)he or she must have a sensory
image of how to carry out the skill,and (3)he or she must have
opportunities to practice the learning.To facilitate learning,demonstrate
the skill either in person,or with a video or picture;allow learner to practice
and correct immediately any errors inn performing the task.
In assessing a client's ability to learn a skill,evaluate his or her
physical,intellectual and emotional ability.A tremulous person with poor
visionmay be incapable of learning self-injection.Similarly,some clients do
not have the intellectual ability to learn steps of a comlex procedure.Teach
at a level of a person's ability,neither above nor below the person's
comprehension.
Each of the three learning domains must be taken into account for effective
health education.Teaching strategies must be based on an assessment of
learner needs,abilities,beliefs,values andreadiness to learn.
PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING
1.The learning environment is supportive and productive-the teacher
buildspositive relations with learners and values each learner,through
teacher modelling and classroom strategies based on environment created
where learners feel comfortable to pursue enquiries and express
themselves.they take responsibility for thier learning,are prepared to
pursue and try out new ideas or tasks
2.The learning environment should promote independence and selfmotivation-teacher model practices that build independence and motivate
learners to work in an autonomous manner.Learners are involved in
decision making within the classroom in relation to what and how they
learn and are encouraged to take responsibility for that learning.Team
building skills are also explicitly taught so that learners learn to
collaborate,negotiate and contribute to join assignments and sharing of
roles.
3.Learners' needs,background,perspectives and interests are reflected in
5. the learning program.A range of strategies is used to monitor and respond
to learners' different learning needs,social needs and cultural
perspectives.Learners' lives and interests are reflected in the learning
sequences.A variety of teaching strategies are used to accommodate the
range of abilities and interests,and to encourage diversity and autonomy.
4.Learners are challenged and supported to develop deep level of thinking
and application.Learners are challenged to explore questions and engage
with significant ideas and practices so that they move beyond superficial
understandings to develop higher order flexible thinking.To support
this,teaching sequences should be sustained,responsible and explore ideas
and practices.
5.Assessment practices are an integral part of learning.Assessment
contributes to planning a number of levels.Monitoring of learners' learning
is continous and encampasses a variety of aspects of undrstanding and
practice.Assessment criteria are explicit and feedback is designed to
support learners' further learning and encourage them to monitor and take
responsibility for their own learning.
6.Learning connects strongly with communities and practice beyond the
classroom.Learners' learning needs to connect with their current and future
lines and with temporary thinking in the broader community;leading to
learners developing a rich view of knowledge and practice,including social
and ethical issues.This principles concerns relavence and connectedness
and also the communal nature of learning
BARRIERS TO EFFECTIVE LEARNING
•
Perception and learning
One of the common barriers to effective learning are problems with
cognition,perception and learning.When in the classroom,learners need a
number of skills to perform properly:literacy skills,numeracy
skills,organisation,memory and comprehension.Some learners,due to
problems with perception and comprehension,are unable to learn
effectively.Dyslexia is also a barrier to learning thata falls within the area of
6. cognition;dyslexic learners are unable to conduct simple learning activities
such as reading,spelling,writing calculation.
•
Physical and sensory difficulties
A large number of sensory,multi-sensory and physical difficulties are also
among the barriers to effective learning.Sensory difficulties may include
temporary or permanent deafness or visual impairment in learners.Due to
these difficulties,such learners are required to go to schools that are
equipped with special tools to make effective learning possible for
them.Some learners also have physical troubles such as flawed hand-eye
coordination.These disabilities act as a huge barrier to effective learning for
the affected learners.
•
Poor communication
Learning is a skill,and one way to make it more effective is to conduct
education through group studies and social interaction.Some learners face
problems while communicating with their peers and are unable to convey
their messages.Poor communication and relationship with the teacher is
also one of the barriers to effective learning.To be an active participant and
effective learner in class,a learner requires the ability to listen and
understand,speak clearly,respond appropriately and express his thoughts
and issues logically.
•
Behavioural and emotional issues
There are a number of social,behavioural and psychological skills that
learners need in order to become more confident,motivated,independent
and effective learners.Low self-esteem,lack of motivation and fear of failure
are some of the emotional issues that act as a barrier in effective learning.It
is also an observation that learners with learning difficulties develop low
self-esteem and low self-confidence.Due to these problems,learners may
develop attention deficit hyperactivity and other disorders that lead to
trouble with concentration and focus.
