Situated health promotion: reflections on implementing situated learning approaches in health promotion

Abstract

Handing down health knowledge and behavior patterns is a main objective of health promotion. Often, interventions do not bring about the intended change of behavior. This could be due, among other things, to the fact that the majority of intervention programs are not based on principles of instructional design to bridge the gap between knowledge and action. A situated design of health promotion measures is to be considered particularly suitable. That accounts for the fact that the acquisition and application of knowledge is an active construction process on the part of the individuals involved, and one that includes the possibility to improve the quality of learning processes in the area of health promotion, and thus increases the probability that acquired knowledge can be applied in real situations. In the context of the problem that most health promotion interventions frequently do not show the desired permanent behavioral changes of the participating individuals, from a pedagogical perspective, it is crucial that current didactic-methodological principles be taken into account. This, too, should be taken into account in connection with an empirical analysis of the reflections in this article. In the following paper, various suggestions for implementation are explained and discussed.