Ensuring competency attainment in
Epidemiology and Biostatistics among
MPH students
School of Public Health and Community Medicine
Glenda Lawrence – UNSW
Priscilla Robinson – La Trobe
Matthew Knuiman – UWA
Overview
 Introduction – GL
 Overview of current PH competencies design – PR
 Examples of teaching approaches
 Biostatistics – MK
 Epidemiology combined with biostatistics – GL
 Overview of epi/biostats core content and assessments
in MPH programs in Australia - GL
 Discussion
Competency in Epi and Bio
As PH educators, how do we ensure competency attainment in
epidemiology and biostatistics by MPH graduates?
What are the common teaching and learning approaches,
challenges, and needs?
 minimal versus ideal levels of knowledge and skill in
epidemiology and biostatistics among graduates of generalist
public health degrees plus UG vs PG vs HDR
 optimal methods of assessment
 innovative strategies in learning and teaching
PH competency framework
Program graduate attributes / learning outcomes
Curriculum development
Curriculum delivery
Assessment – formative / summative
Opportunity to consider
 New Australian PH competency framework currently
being developed – 21st century workforce
 International frameworks
 Is guidance needed in ‘translating’ competency
frameworks to course curriculum?
 Assessment of attainment
 Exam vs more authentic practice based assessment?
 Could there be a collaborative approach to ensuring
competency attainment e.g. assessment item bank?
 Benchmarking opportunities
 Priscilla Robinson
 Competency Frameworks
 Matthew Knuiman
 Core Biostatistics Unit - UWA
UNSW approach
 Combined Epidemiology and Biostatistics core unit
 Taught concurrently to internal students face-to-face
and external students online
 Pre-semester workshop – includes intro SPSS tutorial
 Weekly 2 hour lecture – recorded on Echo360
 Weekly learning activities aligned to learning outcomes
 SPSS ‘how to’ videos for each module’s learning activities
 Weekly optional 3 hour ‘clinic’ - one-to-one help by tutors
 Weekly face to face tutorials; online tutors for externals
 ‘de-Greeked’ biostats
Students
 220 students in S1 2014
 66% external (part-time)
 External students time poor; often more
experienced in epi and biostats than internal
students
 Many fearful initially, particularly of stats and SPSS
 Often pleased with own development across the 12
weeks of the course
Course content
Epi
 Measures of frequency
 Incidence, prevalence, age specific









and standardisation
Measures of Association
 RR, OR, AR, PAR etc
Study designs
Study validity
Selection bias
Measurement error
Confounding & effect mod
Critical appraisal of published papers
– cohort, RCT, case-control
Screening tests and programs
Synthesis of evidence – systematic
reviews and meta-analysis
Biostats
 Presenting data
 Summary descriptive statistics





and data variation
Normal & other distributions
Precision and confidence
intervals
Hypothesis testing and
inferential statistics
 Means
 Proportions
 Independent/paired
 Non-normal data
Correlation & regression
Sample size estimation & testing
Other topics
 Taught in Foundations in PH unit
 Basic demography
 Routinely collected data
 Surveillance
 Outbreak investigation
Why teach epi/biostats in one course?
 Helps make the relationship between the two
disciplines explicit for students (de-siloing)
 Learning activities and assessment tasks used to
integrate epi and stats knowledge and skills
 Most students now embrace combined teaching
(compared to 2008 when first run)
 Some complain of workload, but fewer now (expect
10 hours per week – UNSW standard)
Evaluation
 UNSW standard questionnaire + focus groups + webinar +
solicited de-identified feedback
 High overall student satisfaction
 98% satisfied – 49% in the strongly agree category
 Feedback varies considerably for external vs internal students
 different levels of proficiency – external students generally achieve
higher marks
 external students very time poor – selective in use of resources e.g.
often don’t listen to lectures but read and complete LAs
 Students like 2 assignments – HATE exam (but many achieve
high marks)
 Is an exam a realistic way of assessing competence / achievement?

Seen by staff to help address issue of plagiarism/collusion
Student quotes
 “I generally really enjoyed the structure and content of the
course and was surprised that I did so, as was fearful of the
subject and so put it off until my second last course! I
actually think it was a useful and practical course and have
already found myself applying it to my work.” EXTERNAL
STUDENT 2014
 “I thought the assignments were pretty consistent with the
course content and weekly learning activities. Having more
smaller assessments might make the course less stressful
(40% exam is huge!).” EXTERNAL STUDENT 2014
 The best part I enjoyed as an external student were the
podcasts as these allowed contact with facilitators.
Another area that I found important was the discussion
groups because these also encouraged instant
feedback from lecturers and students alike.
 Course notes - brilliant! So well-ordered, succinct and
yet thorough.
To be honest I only read the lecture slides if I didn't
understand the course notes and only listened to the
lecture if I still didn't understand.
SPSS videos a life saver -some things just can't be
explained in writing.
Discussion forums great when responses quick, which
was most of the time.
Overview of Australian MPH courses
 Scanned websites of 14 universities for available
information on MPH epi and biostats units
 All teach topics listed in competencies in intro courses
 Vary in some topics such as demography, multiple regression
 Most use SPSS to teach hands-on data analysis
 Most teach epi and biostats in separate courses
 Many offer both face-to-face and online options
 Most assess LOs using assignments plus open book
exam in both epi and stats
 ~35% to 70% of the course
Discussion points
As PH educators, how do we ensure competency attainment in
epidemiology and biostatistics by MPH graduates?
What are the common teaching and learning approaches, challenges, and
needs?
Consider
 minimal versus ideal levels of knowledge and skill in epidemiology and
biostatistics among graduates of generalist public health degrees plus
UG vs PG vs HDR
 optimal methods of assessment – exam vs other ‘authentic’ approaches
 shared bank of assessment items (collaborative approaches)?
 innovative strategies in learning and teaching
Opportunity to consider
 New Australian PH competency framework currently
being developed – 21st century workforce
 International frameworks
 Is guidance needed in ‘translating’ competency
frameworks to course curriculum?
 Assessment of attainment
 Exam vs more authentic practice based assessment?
 Could there be a collaborative approach to ensuring
competency attainment e.g. assessment item bank?
 Benchmarking opportunities
PH competency framework
Program graduate attributes / learning outcomes
Curriculum development
Curriculum delivery
Assessment – formative / summative
Acknowledgements
 UNSW colleagues
 Lois Meyer
 Andrew Hayen
 Bayzidur Rahman
 Anita Heywood