The effects of single and multiple BOPPPS-integrated model sessions on public health students' competences: a two-stage study combining quasi-experimental and cross-sectional analyses.

Background: Effective instructional approaches for fostering students' competences in public health education remain to be explored. This study aimed to integrate the bridge-in, objective, pre-assessment, participatory learning, post-assessment, and summary (BOPPPS) framework with problem-based learning (PBL), team-based learning (TBL), and case-based learning (CBL) to develop a novel instructional model, termed the BOPPPS-integrated model (BIM), and to assess the influences of single and multiple BIM interventions on the competences of undergraduate public health students.

Methods: A two-stage study was conducted by a quasi-experimental pilot study and a cross-sectional survey. First, the quasi-experiment compared a traditional lecture-based learning (LBL) group (n = 50) with a BIM group (n = 48) to evaluate the effect of a single BIM intervention. Second, a cross-sectional study was conducted to analyze the impacts of multiple BIM sessions across three groups: control (n = 96), basic intervention (1-2 times BIM, n = 66), and intensive intervention (≥ 3 times BIM, n = 62). All participants completed a self-administered questionnaire designed to evaluate seven competence dimensions: information literacy, summarization, expressive communication, critical thinking, self-directed learning, teamwork, and objective evaluation, which are essential for public health students to address complex public health challenges.

Results: Students who received single and multiple BIM instructional sessions scored significantly higher in information literacy, expressive communication, and teamwork than those who received LBL method (P < 0.05). Multiple BIM interventions further improved scores in summarization, self-directed learning, and objective evaluation (P < 0.05). The scores of six dimensions like information literacy, summarization, expressive communication, self-directed learning, teamwork, and objective evaluation showed an upward trend as the number of interventions increased (P for trend < 0.05).

Conclusions: A single BIM intervention effectively improved students' competences in information literacy, teamwork, and expressive communication. Additionally, multiple BIM interventions not only consolidated these competences but also fostered summarization, self-directed learning, and objective evaluation, thereby highlighting the importance of BIM in developing students' competences in public health education.