Melissa Lew

Proposed Title

Developing Young People's Health Literacy: A rural secondary school case study

Supervisors

Principal Supervisor: Associate Professor Matthew Winslade
Co-Supervisor: Dr Gregory Auhl
Co-Supervisor: Associate Professor Lena Danaia
Co-Supervisor: Dr Lana McCarthy

Research

Given the importance of developing young people's health literacy, and the espoused opportunity presented by the Australian Health and Physical Education Curriculum, the central aim of the research is to investigate whether a curriculum document, and its content elaborations, provides New South Wales Health and Physical Education teachers, with the opportunity to enhance secondary students' health literacy levels.

In order to explore the broader aims, six sub aims are proposed as follows:

1. ascertain how the term health literacy is represented in a range of disciplinary literature;
2. identify and categorise explicit representations of health literacy in the Australian Health and Physical Education curriculum content elaborations;
3. evaluate the efficacy of health literacy measurement tools in school settings;
4. explore teachers' perceptions of the concept of health literacy;
5. measure NSW secondary students' health literacy levels; and
6. evaluate the efficacy of a health unit of work in improving students' levels of health literacy.

Why I chose Charles Sturt

I live in Bathurst, and attended Charles Sturt on campus to do an undergraduate degree which turned into an honours degree and was invited to do a PhD by my honours supervisor.