Course Description

Knowledge Translation (KT) has received increased attention in the population health literature over the last two decades, particularly in Canada, in part because granting agencies increasingly ask academics to build KT plans into their research projects. 

However, the aspiration that knowledge inform action and policy has been a preoccupation for far longer, as have been academic efforts to understand the relation between knowledge and action.  Given this longer history, the contemporary population health literature will be critically reviewed in the light of an interdisciplinary tradition that examines how actors, organizations, companies and/or movements mobilize ideas to influence consumers, populations, institutions and policy. 

Students will be invited to examine critically what we can learn about KT by “thinking about power,” “thinking like a movement” and “thinking like a marketer.” 

The course will be of particular interest to students in various disciplines who are keen to examine how the findings they and others generate in research settings may contribute to fostering public understanding and in stimulating action for positive change.  While the course will focus on systems-level change, the intention is to explore key KT concepts and planning strategies that can be applied to influence action in a range of settings.

The design of this curriculum was supported by the UBC Centre for Community Engaged Learning (http://students.ubc.ca/about/centre-community-engaged-learning).  The pedagogy is organized so that students learn about the subject in part by reflecting on a pan-Canadian population health KT and community engagement campaign called Generation Squeeze (http://gensqueeze.ca Links to an external site.), which the instructor founded from his research and KT lab at the University of BC.  Generation Squeeze is also an output of the 17 year long, ongoing KT activity organized by the Human Early Learning Partnership (http://earlylearning.ubc.ca) to influence the social determinants of health.  This case study will be featured throughout the semester to allow students to apply a critical review of the course readings to the evolution of an actual KT initiative in order to bring the literature to life in a real setting.

With support from the instructor, students will design a KT activity (that they may implement during the semester) to contribute either to a KT initiative of their choosing, or the Generation Squeeze campaign in order to gain practical experience.  The latter case study integrates a broad range of Social Determinants of Health themes from which students can choose to focus, including income, education, housing, child development, the environment, etc. 

Students will then critically reflect on their experiences designing theories of change, tactics and tools for their KT activity in order to apply this learning to develop a KT Field Guide to inform their ongoing research and future professional work.  In this way, the course is organized to contribute concretely to students’ major projects, theses, etc.   

Students will work in small groups for the purpose of designing the KT activity.

Given the pedagogical emphasis on learning by doing, the instructor has organized the syllabus to balance book learning with practice. THERE ARE NO ASSIGNED READINGS FOR WEEKS 5, 6, 11 and 13 -- one third of the class.

There is a heavier emphasis on readings in the first two-thirds of the semester.  The final few weeks introduce very little new reading other than what has already been assigned earlier in the semester in accommodation of the focus on learning by doing. 

Students will be supported with their assignments throughout the semester by class-time that will be devoted to planning for the first three written assignments. Students will also be given the opportunity to present drafts of their first three assignments to the class before making a final submission.

The research required of the final assignment will be performed primarily while planning and critically reviewing the KT activities supported during the first three assignments.  No additional research is required to achieve an excellent final assignment.