The food intakes of Australians are influenced by a range of individual, community and societal factors. Public health nutrition (PHN) focuses on issues affecting whole populations rather than individuals and to develop effective PHN strategies, it is important to understand the impact of population/community level factors on the behaviours and intakes of individuals. This assessment task will allow you to research Australian communities and develop an understanding of factors that impact food access and affordability and health of community members.

This task requires you to demonstrate capacity to engage in a research activity to develop understanding and appreciation of community nutrition issues in context. You will be required to work within the Public Health Nutrition 'group' that will include all students enrolled in the unit.

To complete this task you will be required to:

1. Conduct a problem analysis of an at-risk community in Australia in relation to food access and affordability (30 marks allocated for this component). This will include:

• Research of previous food access and affordability studies conducted across Australia and development of a table of your findings that will be included in your final written report (10 marks).
• Research of communities in Australia and documentation of relevant census data that describes the characteristics of a specific community (10 marks).
• Collection of food cost and availability data for your community (Formative).
• Entry of data collected from your community into a shared group datasheet (Formative).
• Conduct of basic analysis of this group data (Formative).
• Development of a written evidence-based report (approximately 2000 words (+/-10%) that discusses previous evidence, describes your community of interest and implications of your data analysis for your community of interest.

Your report should include at least two (2) tables that support discussion of your results.

The tables should be presented in APA table format. Your final report should include at least 10 references (references are not included in word count).

2. Develop and deliver a ten (10) minute online oral presentation to your peers to provide insight into food access and affordability issues affecting Australian communities (20 marks allocated for this component with peer review contributing 50% of these marks). 

Detailed marking criteria will be available in the unit Assessment Guide that will be available from the unit Moodle site.

For the Written report criteria will be based on

• Quality of writing;
• Competence in addressing all aspects of the task;
• Formulation of arguments, critical analysis, interpretation and explanation;
• Relevance of discussion; Accuracy in use of supporting evidence; and
• Organisation of report.

General written assessment standards will be used as follows:

High Distinction (85-100%)

For a high distinction the written assessment should demonstrate confidence & competence in addressing all aspects of the specified tasks & areas of inquiry. The assignment:

• Includes discussion which is highly relevant & valid throughout, & provides clear evidence of mastery of the subject matter.
• Is coherent & flows clearly from point to point.
• Is drawn from extensive research. Is creative, thorough, & accurate in its use of supporting evidence.
• Exhibits an exceptional level of critical thought and extensive analysis, interpretation & explanation, as basis for formulation of arguments.
• Includes original thinking throughout, is based on clearly evaluated evidence & logical carefully framed assertions.
• Is presented & organised almost faultlessly.

Distinction (75-84%)

For a distinction the written assessment should demonstrate confidence & competence in addressing most aspects of the specified tasks & areas of inquiry. The assignment:

• Includes discussion which is mostly relevant & valid.
• Is mostly coherent, & presented in a mostly logical & clear manner.
• Is drawn from mostly relevant research & uses supporting evidence accurately.
• Demonstrates a high level of critical thought, and thorough analysis, interpretation & explanation in formulating arguments.
• Is focused, but some areas lack creativity &/or originality in the interpretations of ideas.
• Includes a few inconsistencies/errors in presentation & organisation.

Credit (65-74%)

For a credit the written assessment should demonstrate conscientious effort & emergent competence in addressing the specified tasks & areas of inquiry. The assignment:

• Includes discussion which is relevant & valid, but some areas are inappropriate &/or unconvincing.
• Is logical but some areas of discussion have marginal value &/or relevance.
• Is drawn from research but some evidence is irrelevant &/or is used inaccurately.
• Demonstrates some critical appraisal & includes some areas where ideas are merely described.
• Has some connections between ideas, but generally lacks creativity &/or originality.
• Includes several faults in presentation &/or organisation.

Pass (50-64%)

For a pass the written assessment should demonstrate some effort & emergent competence in addressing the specified tasks & areas of inquiry. The assignment:

• Includes discussion which has only some degree of relevance & validity.
• Shows minimal or no critical thought.
• Is generally coherent in some parts, but lack of clarity in expressions in other parts leads to confusion & ambiguity.
• Demonstrates some evidence of research but contains many erroneous assertions & irrelevant materials.
• The approach is mostly descriptive & reproductive; it provides little or no evidence of analysis or synthesis.
• Contains numerous faults &/or organisation is inconsistent &/or incomplete.

Fail (<50%)

A fail written response to an assignment demonstrates lack of competence, & little or no attempt to address the assigned tasks. The assignment:

• Includes discussion which is poorly conceived, shows minimal or no relevance to the task & fails to establish validity for the work.
• Contains too many significant faults to be regarded as a University standard piece of work.
• Does not demonstrate engagement in &/or understanding of course work materials.
• Shows little or no evidence of research.
• Overall, is presented &/or organised in a manner which does not satisfactorily meet academic standards.

For the Oral presentation criteria will be based on:

• Background information,
• Confidence and competence in delivery of presentation,
• Clarity and flow of presentation,
• Body language, diction and pace of presentation,
• Content and organisation of slides, and
• Engagement with content of presentation.

As students (and in your future role as health practitioners) you are required to read many journal articles across a range of disciplines. It would be unreasonable to think that we will always understand everything that is contained in these articles (especially data analysis techniques). It is however, important to develop confidence in understanding much of what we are reading and conducting further investigation of issues/topics when we do not understand what is written/read.

This task requires you to demonstrate capacity to engage with others in an online learning environment to develop understanding and appreciation for research skills used in research and professional practice. Through supported group discussion, you will be given opportunity to develop understanding of key learning topics in public health nutrition and skills in evaluating published journal articles using an evidence based and objective approach.

To complete this assessment task you will be required to:

• Participate in AND contribute to three (3) online journal club meetings presented as synchronous discussions (using online Zoom sessions).
• Develop a reflective report of key learning outcomes from your participation in the journal club meetings.

Task details:

Online journal club meetings:

A list of journal articles will be provided to students at the start of term and from this list, each student will choose one journal article that they will critique and discuss with the group during scheduled journal club meetings.

The specific days and times for each meeting will be determined upon consultation with all students at the commencement of term.

Prior to each meeting, you will be required to:

• Read, review and critique your chosen journal article,
• Consider the evaluation criteria (see below) to be able to present and lead discussion of the article during the meeting, and
• Use the Journal Club Evaluation Tool (available in the ASSESSMENT RESOURCES TAB on unit Moodle site) to document your responses to the following criteria:

• What was the purpose of the study?
• Why is the research being conducted?
• Why the research is considered significant/important?
• Are the research questions/hypotheses clearly stated?
• What do you judge to be the standard of writing?
• Who were the subjects?
• What was the study design?
• What methods were used for measurement?
• What was the primary outcome measure (s)?
• What was the secondary outcome measure (s)?
• What methods were used for data analysis?
• What are the main outcomes/results?
• What is the significance of the results?
• What is the ‘take-home’ message (s) of this article?

Individual Reflective report:

You are required to develop and submit a brief reflective report (not exceeding 500 words) that includes the following:

• General overview of the journal articles that were discussed in each meeting, and a
• Written account of your reflections of how the journal evaluations and meetings impacted your learning e.g. increased your understanding of a topic; changed/confirmed your opinion and/or personal practices; prompted you to talk with others about the topic and your new knowledge/understanding, prompted you to engage in further research etc.

Marks will be allocated for each of the following criteria (for a mark out of 30 that will contribute to your overall grade):

• Attendance to two or more journal club meetings (5 marks for each meeting - maximum 10 marks),
• Online presentation/discussion of outcomes of evaluation of one (1) journal article (5 marks),
• Completion and submission of evaluation of journal article (5 marks),
• Submission of Reflective report (10 marks) - written account of reflections that clearly demonstrates how the students understanding of topics has developed as a result of their involvement in the journal club meetings. 

NOTE: reflection can be written in first person. References are NOT required in reflective report.