Health education snapshot 5
How to analyse a health issue (level 7)
Inquiry
Level 7 and level 8 achievement objectives require students to analyse and critically evaluate a range of health related attitudes, data, issues, products, and values. In the past many students have used the internet and other sources to find information and research selected contexts, but without critically analysing or evaluating what they were investigating.
Students also need to think critically about the material they are presenting for internal and external assessment. Some students are not achieving because they are treating resource material like a comprehension exercise or they may be providing ‘evidence’ (for example, statistics and other context specific information) that isn’t linked to the point they are trying to make about the health issue.
Focusing inquiry
To ensure students were applying critical thinking and undertaking some analysis, the teacher designed leaning activities to trigger critical insight into the causes of bullying in order to work out what needs to be done to influence people to change behaviours to produce healthy communities and environments that reflect social justice values.
Teacher inquiry
After reviewing a range of HPE teaching materials to unpack the NZC achievement objectives C1, 7C3, 7D3, and the verbs that start each of these, along with the explanatory notes (ENs) in the achievement standards, the teacher realised that students would need to analyse and think critically about the information they were sourcing and to apply the underlying concepts of the learning area to the selected context in various ways. (See
Key concepts in health education and
Progressions in health education.)
She reviewed the previous year’s NCEA level 2 results and some of the student’s scripts.
She refocussed the current year’s programme to be about bullying (as indicated in the assessment specifications for the exam for the coming year), and rethought her approach to the programme planning as follows:
- Using ideas for negotiating contexts with students (See
snapshot 1) she identified a range of bullying related situations that were applicable to the students at the school.
- She used these ideas to identify a range investigation questions related to bullying that groups of students had to find answers to and bring back to class (definition of bullying, how it was different to discrimination, harassment and abuse, the legal situation, some youth statistics about the levels and type of bullying, support websites aimed to help people who have been victims of bullying, recent examples in the media reporting bullying, identification of recent films or stories that feature bullying as a theme etc).
- After students reported their findings and made these available to other members of the class, she guided them through a series of learning activities to develop responses to the following questions (using the information they had gathered and seeking further information where required).
Further, the teacher noted that in combination these activities develop the knowledge and understandings that are the ‘analysis’:
- What exactly is ‘bullying’ and how does it impact on well-being? (Consider the impact on all dimensions of well-being.) (See
snapshot 3 on change.)
- Do different types of bullying impact differently on well-being, for example, physical pushing, shoving and interfering with property, verbal name calling, telling lies about someone, isolating people, and various forms of cyber-bullying etc.
- What underpins why some people bully – cover a range of attitudes, values, and beliefs held by individuals and groups. What is learned from families, from wider culture, from historic practices – in other words, personal, interpersonal, and societal influences on bullying.
- Bullying, like discrimination, harassment and abuse is about people in relationships believing they have power over others. What is the nature of this ‘power’ – how do they use it or show it? Why do some people think and believe they have the right to bully others? Pay particular attention to the way individuals and groups believe they have superiority or some sort of ‘right’ based on difference (sex/gender, sexual orientation, race/culture/ethnicity, appearance, ability/disability and so on). It is useful to help students to see how bullying, harassment, discrimination, and abuse are similar in some ways and different in others.
- Who else is complicit in bullying situations? Pay attention to the bystanders who do nothing.
- Who are more likely to be the victims of bullies?
- Why do we have a collective/social responsibility to do something about bullying? Why is taking action against bullying contributing to a greater social good (in other words, social justice?) Why is it not good enough to just say to individuals who have been bullied, ‘harden up’ and learn to deal with it?
- What is the current thinking about how bullying should be managed? Find out about restorative practices, how helping the victim only is not enough, how it is a whole-school/whole community approach where everyone has responsibilities, that prevention is the ideal, but on-going management strategies are also needed because of the prevalence of bullying.
- How can the law be applied to bullying situations – what are schools required to comply with? When is it more than bullying, that is, it become assault and a criminal act?
- What sorts of knowledge and skills do people need to help manage and, importantly, prevent bullying?
Achievement objectives that could be used as a basis to develop learning intentions
- 7C1: Analyse the nature and benefits of meaningful interpersonal relationships.
- 7C3: Evaluate information, make informed decisions and use interpersonal skills effectively to manage conflict, competition and change in relationships.
- 7D3: Evaluate laws, policies, practices and regulations in terms of their contribution to social justice at and in the wider community.
Possible assessment links to achievement standards
- AS91236 Evaluate factors that influence people’s ability to manage change.
- AS91238 Analyse an interpersonal issue(s) that places personal safety at risk.
- AS91237 Take action to enhance an aspect of people’s well-being within the school or wider community.
Learning inquiry
An outcome of this type of inquiry was that students then could have an opportunity to apply their knowledge to a selection of situations to firstly determine if a situation is bullying (or something else), how well-being is being impacted, what attitudes, values and beliefs underpin the bullying, and how the situation should be managed, not only for the bully and victim but the wider group/community where it occurred.
We used current examples in the news, materials provided with anti-bullying campaigns or films, and other recent media. As a result, students had to think critically about all of this – they needed to reach these understandings for themselves and this may include critiquing unsafe and unhelpful materials that are in the public arena to determine if they reflect the values of social justice.
Last updated June 10, 2022
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