¡A su salud!: Effective for Health Profession Students and Working Professionals

Evaluations of two separate pilot programs demonstrate the learning effectiveness and participant satisfaction of the intermediate ¡A su salud! program. Universally, students and practicing health care professionals rated their language and culture skills in patient-care situations significantly improved.

Students also overwhelmingly agreed or strongly agreed that the course was effective, enjoyable, well-paced and at the correct level for learning. They found that the DVD, workbook, faculty interaction, exams and grading methods all facilitated their learning. Participants felt their ability to communicate with and understand clients, establish trust, describe pain, and ask and understand events that Spanish-speaking clients experienced improved through the completion of this program. Further, the students also reported that they had a better understanding of culture's impact on communication in health care settings.

For both pilot studies, learning performance data were gathered on structures (grammar), vocabulary, listening comprehension, speaking ability and an overall language performance measure. Data are presented below on pre and post testing for both studies. The data on the pilots is consistent with the evaluations for the interdisciplinary health professions elective offered each semester since fall 2004 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Demonstration of learning efficacy: Winter 2001 (1st pilot): One month long

Overall score is a combination of structure, vocabulary, and comprehension scores.

Demonstration of learning efficacy II: Summer 2003 (2nd pilot): Two months long

*The decreased value for the listening comprehension can be explained by poor video quality of the post-test.

** (ns) = not significant

Hypothesized differences: ***= 10%,****= 25%, ***** = 20%