Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare (Apr 2018)
Analysis of the third-grade curriculum for health subjects: Application of Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool
Abstract
Leila Savari,1 Maryam Shafiei,2 Hamid AllahverdiPour,1 Hossein Matlabi1 1Department of Health Education and Promotion, Faculty of Health Sciences, Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, Tabriz, Iran; 2Department of Educational Planning and Administration, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran Purpose: Applying the Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (HECAT), the third-grade curriculum was assessed in accordance with health-related items.Methods: A multimethod research was used to investigate the student textbooks and three modules including healthy eating, physical activity, and safety. Based on purposive sampling, curriculum committees were made up of teachers, elementary school principals, members of the parents–teachers’ associations, and health care experts.Results: Data obtained from the group discussion were analyzed based on the conventional content analysis approach. All modules received coverage percentages of <34%. The highest mean coverage percentage belonged to the safety module (25.59%) and the lowest to healthy eating (12.78%).Conclusion: Suggested solutions were classified based on three general themes such as clarifying and determining healthy dietary behaviors and actions, educating life skills and adopting healthy diet behaviors, and finally utilizing social norms for adopting with healthy diet patterns. Keywords: module, safety, physical activity, Iran, health education, HECAT, primary schools, safety module, healthy eating
