Publications by authors named "Marlyn Ochieng"

Background: Learning to thinking critically about health information and choices can protect people from unnecessary suffering, harm, and resource waste. Earlier work revealed that children can learn these skills, but printing costs and curricula compatibility remain important barriers to school implementation. We aimed to develop a set of digital learning resources for students to think critically about health that were suitable for use in Kenyan, Rwandan, and Ugandan secondary schools.

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Article Synopsis
  • The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the Informed Health Choices intervention, which teaches secondary school students how to evaluate health claims and make informed decisions.
  • Conducted in Kenya with 3362 students from 80 schools, the trial involved training teachers and delivering lessons on critical health concepts to the intervention group, while the control group did not receive any intervention.
  • Results showed a significant improvement in critical thinking scores among students in the intervention schools, with 61.7% passing the test compared to just 34.1% in the control schools, indicating the intervention's success in enhancing critical thinking skills related to health.
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Background: Good health decisions depend on one's ability to think critically about health claims and make informed health choices. Young people can learn these skills through school-based interventions, but learning resources need to be low-cost and built around lessons that can fit into existing curricula. As a first step to developing and evaluating digital learning resources that are feasible to use in Kenyan secondary schools, we conducted a context analysis to explore interest in critical thinking for health, map where critical thinking about health best fits in the curriculum, explore conditions for introducing new learning resources, and describe the information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure available for teaching and learning.

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