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Blended learning is an effective strategy for acquiring competence in public health biostatistics

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Journal of Public Health

Abstract

Objectives

We sought to determine whether blended learning is an effective strategy for acquiring competence in public health biostatistics.

Methods

The trial was conducted with 69 Masters’ students of public health attending the School of Public Health at University of Belgrade. Students were exposed to the traditional and blended learning styles. Blended learning included a combination of face-to-face and distance learning methodologies integrated into a single course. Curriculum development was guided by competencies as suggested by the Association of Schools of Public Health in the European Region (ASPHER). Teaching methods were compared according to the final competence score.

Results

Forty-four students were enrolled in the traditional method of education delivery, and 25 to the blended learning format. Mean exam scores for the blended learning group were higher than for the on-site group for both the final statistics score (89.65 ± 6.93 vs. 78.21 ± 13.26; p < 0.001) and knowledge test score (35.89 ± 3.66 vs. 22.56 ± 7.12; p < 0.001), with estimated large effect size (d > 0.8).

Conclusions

A blended learning approach is an attractive and effective way of acquiring biostatistics competence for Masters of Public Health (MPH) graduate students.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia

    Natasa Milic, Srdjan Masic, Vesna Bjegovic-Mikanovic, Goran Trajkovic, Jelena Marinkovic, Jelena Milin-Lazovic, Zoran Bukumiric, Marko Savic, Andja Cirkovic, Milan Gajic & Dejana Stanisavljevic

Authors
  1. Natasa Milic
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  2. Srdjan Masic
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  3. Vesna Bjegovic-Mikanovic
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  4. Goran Trajkovic
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  5. Jelena Marinkovic
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  6. Jelena Milin-Lazovic
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  7. Zoran Bukumiric
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  8. Marko Savic
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  9. Andja Cirkovic
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  10. Milan Gajic
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  11. Dejana Stanisavljevic
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Natasa Milic.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Milic, N., Masic, S., Bjegovic-Mikanovic, V. et al. Blended learning is an effective strategy for acquiring competence in public health biostatistics. Int J Public Health 63, 421–428 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-017-1039-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-017-1039-5

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