School
School of Public Health
Document Type
Dissertation
Department (new version)
Public Health
Date of Award
2002
Degree Name by School
Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) School of Public Health
Abstract
To develop a well-trained global work force, public health workers must take advantage of new opportunities to provide public health training and education. Distance education delivered via the Internet holds particular promise, especially for public health workers in developing countries. Because of the need to travel to the United States, Europe, or elsewhere, public health workers in developing countries have limited access to traditional public health training and education. Even short-courses are not cost-effective or efficient in terms of time and travel. If public health distance education delivered via the Internet could be shown to be equivalent to traditional public health education, a global public health work force could have timely, cost-effective access to public health training and education. Using a randomized controlled trial designed to test for equivalence between the Internet course and the traditional course, there was a significant difference in learning outcomes between the Internet course and the traditional course. Participants in the Internet course had a mean pretest score of 25 and a mean posttest score of 84. Participants in the traditional course had a mean pretest score of 29 and a mean posttest score of 77. Therefore, in this instance, participants in the Internet course did significantly better than the participants in the traditional course ( P -value 0.002). Having determined equivalence between the traditional course and the Internet course, we sought to determine the feasibility and appropriateness of using Internet-based distance education in Egypt for the ongoing, continuous education of public health workers. We found that Internet-based distance education was acceptable to Egyptian public health workers. Furthermore, Egyptian public health workers indicated they desired additional Internet-based distance education courses. We concluded that the Internet in Egypt was of sufficient capacity and quality to offer substantial continuing education and training for public health workers. In conjunction with our earlier findings of equivalence between an Internet-based distance education course and a traditional course, our findings supported the use of Internet-based distance education as a means to train public health workers in developing countries.
ProQuest Publication Number
ProQuest ID
3058742
ISBN
978-0-493-73986-1
Recommended Citation
Noel, Rebecca Ann, "Internet -based education in Egypt: A pilot project to assess public health capacity and the potential for distance education using a randomized controlled comparison of an Internet-based distance education course and a traditional face-to-face course" (2002). All ETDs from UAB. 7220.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/7220
Comments
DrPH