Leadership Lens: Measuring Learning Outcomes on CFHI Programs

With highly consequential elections in the US only weeks away, we have an opportunity to reflect on the ways that our educational spaces and structures both foster and break down divisions and silos. CFHI is a longtime member of the Community-Based Global Learning Collaborative  and a participant in the Global Engagement Survey (GES) it offers. The GES is a longitudinal, multi-institutional assessment tool that employs quantitative and qualitative methods to better understand student global learning, which is identified as a “high impact practice” by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U, 2014).

The GES explores how programs like a CFHI Global Health Education internship, program, or elective foster learning outcomes such as cultural humility, global citizenship, and critical reflection; tools that are essential for open dialogue and acknowledging our global connectedness in the face of conflict and division. Using pre and post assessments, the GES gauges program participant learning and development across 8 scales including civic efficacy, political voice, human rights beliefs, openness to diversity, cultural adaptability, and more.

According to GES quantitative data, CFHI participants display growth on each of the 8 scales as a result of their CFHI program. After completing a CFHI program, participants are more likely to agree with the statement, “When I stop to consider what I know about the world, I realize that even my strongest ‘truths’ are open to change.” Similarly, post-program, CFHI participants are more likely to agree with statements including, “Over the next 6 months, I will contact or visit someone in government to seek public action on international issues and concerns”, “I feel I have the ability to make a difference in my local community”, and “I work to develop and maintain relationships with people of backgrounds different from my own.”

These tools and skills serve our program participants not only in the hospital, clinic, NGO, or public health office, but also in their homes, communities, campuses, organizing spaces, and local governments. Our tagline “Let the world change you” articulates the journey of CFHI’s over 15,000 alumni from building deep learning and cultural humility to becoming thoughtful and informed change agents as health professionals, advocates, faculty, policymakers, journalists, and leaders in so many other fields.

To learn more about CFHI’s thought leadership, publications, program opportunities, and more, visit our website at cfhi.org or contact us at [email protected].

Thank you for being here,

Robin Young, MBA

Executive Director

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