Basic Medical Training for Refugees via Collaborative Blended Learning: Quasi-Experimental Design

Thibault Lovey, Paul O'Keeffe, Ianis Petignat.

Background:

Globally, there is an excess of 68.5 million people who have been forced to leave their homes and seek sanctuary elsewhere because of poverty, persecution, conflict, violence, and human rights violations. Although international humanitarian responses usually focus on ensuring that the basic needs of these people are being met, there is growing attention on the role that development-oriented interventions can play in the longer term. Higher education in a refugee context is one such intervention that can equip refugees with the knowledge and skills they need to serve their communities and move forward.

Objective:

This study aims to evaluate the outcomes and effectiveness of the University of Geneva InZone-Raft Basic Medical Training Course in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya compared with a previous incarnation of the same course in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya.

Methods: We used a quasi-experimental design to compare the posttest scores of both inequivalent student groups: control group (n=18) and intervention group (n=16). Factors that influenced refugee students’ knowledge acquisition, the amount of knowledge they acquired, and their academic outcomes were assessed, and the pedagogical evolution of the project is presented

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