As a LTU student you are given a placement at a secondary school. Recent reports in the media have raised awareness of a study conducted by researchers at LTU on the sexual health of secondary students. Two issues raised in the report have received particular attention about behaviours among secondary school students: alcohol and drug use; and the use of technology and cyberbullying.

The media attention has led to an increase in the number of parents at the school raising concerns about these issues. In response, the school principal has approached the LTU placement students, who are Public Health and Rehab Counselling majors, and asked them to prepare a response to the report that includes additional analysis of relevant data. This is needed so that teachers in the school are better informed about the research and can answer parents’ questions. The principle makes it clear that the expectation is for “evidence-based reports” as some of the parents “know a lot about this sort of thing and we need to be clear that we know what we are talking about”. The school has also collected data from a random sample of students in Years 10, 11 and 12. HIM placement students were asked to prepare a summary report using these data.

An abridged version of the full report is available in the Assessment folder on the PHE2AHR LMS site. Students will need to access this report to complete the assessment.

All students will produce similar reports in terms of structure and format.

Public health and rehab counselling students will re-analyse data from the original report focusing on technology use and cyberbullying issues (Chapter 8).

Health Information Management students will base their report on data collected from students at the school.

REPORT STRUCTURE AND CONTENT

Title page and abstract (worth 5%)

This section should include:

·         Title for the report, author’s name and affiliation ( i.e., Department of Public Health, La Trobe University).

·         Abstract (i.e., executive summary) of the work (max. 250 words), including the following information: Background; Methods; Results, and; Conclusion.

·         A maximum of eight keywords.

This section is NOT included in the word count.

Body of the report (total 70%):

There should be four main sections (as per IMRAD)

·         Introduction            (5%)

This section should present the real‐world problem and context, including appropriate references to other relevant research studies and/or systematic reviews, and identification of any gaps or issues.

There should be a clear statement of the research question or hypothesis and the specific objectives that the report addresses.

·         Method        (15%)

This section of the report should describe important elements of the research design and the approach to the analysis. This includes information about: participants, sample size, sampling strategy and population, data collection method, description of variables including outcomes measures. Description of statistical analyses performed.

·         Results          (30%)

This section should include narrative, tabular and graphical presentations of data that result from your analyses. (Note: data sources will be specific to your discipline [see attached]).

Results should be reported in terms of descriptive statistics and inferential statistics (in the form of chi-square, χ2, and/or t‐tests).

·         Discussion     (20%)

This section should discuss the results in reference to the research question or hypothesis and objectives. It should include an interpretation of the study results and their implications. This section should also acknowledge study limitations (including what they are) and suggestions for future directions or next steps.

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