Page 187 - Cultural Competence in Health Education

Toward a Culturally Competent Health Education Workforce 165

learning experience can improve a person ’ s cultural perspectives, but the true test of
competence lies in the degree to which an individual commits to lifelong learning.
Part of the profile of a culturally competent student lies in the degree to which that

student is engaging in observable actions conducive to learning.

The Profile of a Competent Student. The culturally competent model of care ( Campinha -
Bacote, 1994) and the PEN - 3 model (Airhihenbuwa, 1995), discussed in Chapter Six , can
serve as a basis for a general profile of a culturally competent student in health education.

Because cultural competence is an ongoing developmental process, the criteria used to
gauge competence in a student must be largely based on active efforts to learn and mature
in relation to these model concepts. Progress is evident when a student
■ Engages in ongoing self - analysis to identify and address personal perspectives
and cross - cultural biases.
■ Actively seeks to view life through the eyes of others, and through that, develops
a greater level of sensitivity for the values and life challenges of other groups.
■ Participates in hands - on training opportunities for practice and feedback that can
help him or her begin to master competent needs assessment techniques.
■ Seeks opportunities to engage in cross - cultural interactions in all aspects of life.

Learning Objectives for Developing Competence. As students begin the learning

process, learning objectives must guide course and program development. Exhibit 9.1
contains some objectives created by the chapter author. Though a variety of other
sources (Beatty & Doyle, 2000; Doyle, Liu, & Ancona, 1996; Luquis & Pérez, 2003)
were used, these objectives are based largely on the work of Luquis, Pérez, and Young
(2006), who identifi ed specifi c content - and skills - related program components as part
of a cultural competence assessment of 157 university health education degree pro-

grams. Some of the curriculum components identified through this study have been

combined, expanded, or otherwise altered in order to reflect general teaching subject

areas and to fit a learning objective format.
The two categories into which the learning objectives shown in Exhibit 9.1 are
divided — awareness - and knowledge - based objectives and skills - based objectives —
can be readily aligned with the five process components of the culturally competent

model of care (Campinha - Bacote, 1994; see Chapter Six ). The awareness - and knowledge -
based objectives represent learning content that a student should master when exploring
personal perspectives and multiple worldviews as part of coursework. The fi rst four
objectives could be used to develop student awareness of evidence - based relationships
between culture, societal factors, and health issues faced by a variety of ethnic and
racial groups. Objective 5 can be used to help students understand and embrace cultur-
ally competent health promotion strategies. Objective 6 is designed to motivate students
toward self - directed competency development by equipping them with learning goals
and knowledge about development strategies.

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