- 10.00: Trial lecture
- 12.00: Public defence
You can also follow this event online (oslomet.zoom.us).
The webinar ID is 633 1955 5137 and the passcode is 0125.
The ordinary opponents are:
- First opponent: Professor Rigmor Berg, Norwegian Institute of Public Health
- Second opponent: Professor Kevin Dadaczynski, Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany
- Leader of the committee: Professor Kirsti Riiser, OsloMet
The leader of the public defense is Associate Professor Asgeir Brevik, OsloMet.
The main supervisor is Professor Marianne Molin, OsloMet. The co-supervisors are Professor Jürgen Kasper, OsloMet, Professor Lisa Garnweidner-Holme, OsloMet and Professor Astrid Dahlgren, OsloMet.
Thesis abstract
Every day, we are confronted with a flood of health claims on the internet, in the media, and from friends and family.
Uncritical acceptance of such, often unreliable, health claims can lead to poor, and sometimes dangerous, decisions, as well as wasted time and money. Therefore, learning to critically assess the reliability of health claims becomes important.
While fact-checking, source criticism, and cross-reading are frequently employed to teach children and young people critical assessment of health claims, these methods are often insufficient to differentiate between reliable and unreliable claims.
Behind the Headlines project
In the Behind the Headlines project at OsloMet, we adopt a different strategy. We teach students to evaluate the basis of health claims, that is, the documentation that supports them.
Behind the Headlines is also used as a gateway to evidence-based practice in the health service for all healthcare students at OsloMet. In their future roles as healthcare professionals, these students must work evidence based.
This means that they must make professional decisions based on systematically acquired, research-based evidence, experience-based evidence, and the patients’ values and needs in each situation.
In their future roles, healthcare students will likely be confronted with claims about the effects of various interventions or treatments from patients who have read about these in the media or on social media.
It is then crucial that they can assess the reliability of these claims, and together with the patient, make informed decisions in shared decision-making.
Evaluation of learning activities
The doctoral thesis includes an evaluation of two learning activities for critical assessment of health claims aimed at university students: a serious game designed to stimulate critical thinking about the reliability of health claims, and Behind the Headlines as a gateway to learning evidence-based practice.
The students perceived these learning activities as interesting, useful, and relevant for everyday life, their studies, and future professions.
Additionally, the thesis includes a study that has examined the validity of a questionnaire designed to measure whether the learning activities contribute to a better understanding of this way of assessing health claims.
