Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #109477

Delesha L. Miller, MSPH, Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rosenau Hall, CB #7440, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7440, 919-966-9009, dlmiller@email.unc.edu, Karl Umble, PhD, MPH, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rosenau Hall, CB# 8165, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7400, David Steffen, UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Heatlh, Campus Box 8165, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, and Donna Dinkin, MPH, Center for Public Health Practice, University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill, Campus Box 8165, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-8165.

Background. This presentation describes the relationship between learning methods and outcomes for participants of the National Public Health Leadership Institute (PHLI). For 14 years, the CDC has sponsored PHLI, whose mission is to strengthen participants' leadership understanding and skill, and to foster long-term collaboration and networks among the scholars. PHLI uses several learning methods including an integrative action learning project, seminars and simulations designed to develop skills, distance learning conference calls, textbooks and readings, and personality and leadership assessment tools and personalized coaching.

Methods. Fifty-one scholars graduated from PHLI in its thirteenth year. Before graduation from PHLI, scholars, who enrolled as individuals or in teams, were required to complete the action learning project and submit a final report that contained information about their public health problem, action steps taken, and personal, interpersonal, and organizational outcomes. Each final report was imported into NVivo 2 (a qualitative analysis software program) and coded by two independent coders who reached a 100% consensus on outcomes.

Results. Certain learning methods produced particular outcomes for scholars at the intrapersonal and organizational levels. For example, there was a clear relationship between using leadership assessment tools and coaching, and heightened leadership self-awareness, which often altered leadership behaviors. There was also a relationship between didactic coursework and subsequent partnering and collaboration behaviors. Scholars discussed how they were able to weave knowledge and skills acquired through different learning methods to affect practices at their organizations. The research has implications for ways to enhance learning and change in leadership development programs.

Learning Objectives:

• Discuss the particular contributions of the learning methods used in PHLI to individual, team, and organizational outcomes, including the action learning project, didactic coursework, distance learning, textbooks and readings, and personality and leadership assessment tools and coaching.
• Model the relationship between different learning methods and intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational outcomes for PHLI scholars.
• List the benefits of using multiple and complementary learning methods in a public health leadership development program, and possible differences in outcomes for scholars who enrolled as individuals, and those who enrolled in teams.

Keywords: Leadership, Evaluation

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.

Recorded presentation