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Recruitment Challenges for Project SHINE

Recruitment Challenges for Project SHINE

Dr. David Buller, Klein Buendel Director of Research, is part of a multiple institution research team that published a paper on recruitment challenges for Project SHINE. The research team is led by Dr. Yelena Wu from the University of Utah and the Huntsman Cancer Institute. The paper entitled, “Challenges and lessons learned in recruiting participants for school-based disease prevention programs during COVID-19,” was published in Contemporary Clinical Trials.

Schools provide an ideal setting for delivery of disease prevention programs due to the ability to deliver health education and counseling, including health behavior interventions, to large numbers of students. However, the remote and hybrid learning models that arose during the COVID-19 pandemic created obstacles to these efforts. The Contemporary Clinical Trials paper provides insights on collaborating with schools to deliver disease prevention programming during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and in subsequent years. The authors illustrate recruitment and engagement strategies by drawing upon their research experiences engaging high schools in a school-based cancer prevention trial focused on sun safety.

Delivery of a cluster-randomized trial of a school-based skin cancer prevention program was initiated in the spring of 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The authors present multilevel evaluation data on strategies used to reach schools remotely and share lessons learned that may inform similar approaches moving forward during times of crises.

Although the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted school-based recruitment for this trial, enrollment improved one year later and did not appear to differ between rural and urban schools. Recruitment strategies and trial-related procedures were modified to address new challenges brought about by the pandemic. Despite the COVID-19 crisis altering classrooms, disease prevention programming can continue to be offered within schools, given close community partnerships and new adaptations to the ways in which such programming and research are conducted.

This research is sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (Dr. Yelena Wu from the University of Utah and the Huntsman Cancer Institute, Principal Investigator). Dr. David Buller from Klein Buendel is a Co-Investigator.

Scaling Media Literacy in a School District Environment

Scaling Media Literacy in a School District Environment

Implementation science, the study of methods and strategies that facilitate the uptake of evidence-based practices, is emerging as a framework to study the application of media literacy. Implementation science emerged in the public health field, and is just becoming known and applied in media literacy programs.

A research team led by Dr. Tessa Jolls from the Center for Media Literacy in California, and including Dr. Barbara Walkosz from Klein Buendel, conducted a panel discussion at the Global Media Education Summit held March 2-4, 2023 at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. The panel was entitled, “Implementation Science: The Road to Scaling in a District Environment.” Two additional panelists included Dr. Marilyn Cohen from the University of Washington and Ms. Heather Van Benthuysen from the Chicago Public Schools.

The research team discussed the rising field of implementation science and presented an example underway in a U.S. school district. Relying on theories of change and rigorous evaluations of programming that exemplify these theories of change, the panelists described how implementation science provides a solid foundation for dissemination, scaling, and helping media literacy take its rightful place as a central educational offering. The panelists illustrated how implementation science works to strengthen and sustain media literacy in schools.

The Global Media Education Summit is convened by the UK’s Centre for Excellence in Media Practice, in collaboration with a leading media education space, in a different country each year. In 2023, the School of Communication and the Community Engaged Research Initiative at Simon Fraser University hosted the event, in partnership with the McLuhan Foundation. The Global Media Education Summit brings together an international network of researchers, educators, and practitioners across all aspects of media education, media and digital literacies, youth media production and media and technology in education. As the leading global showcase for research, pedagogy, and innovation, the Summit explores the changing currents across media education and media literacy communities around the world.