Hi all, I’m writing this as my train heads home, after a chaotic week in London. The first half of my week was taking a course called “Pragmatic evaluation for physical activity and public health” – organised by academics at the University of Sydney (Dr Justin Richards), University of Edinburgh (Dr Paul Kelly), and University of East Anglia (Dr Karen Milton). The second half was for the International Society of Physical Activity for Health (ISPAH), but I’ll talk more about that in a future post. The Pragmatic course was unlike any seminars I’ve attended before... ...in terms of length, intensity and design. The shortest possible summary: it was awesome…. Here are a few key bits:
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" -a quote reiterated throughout the course, hence the "pragmatic" focus.
My only suggestion for future courses would be to modify a few of the sessions to be more active. We (public health/physical activity experts) need to practice what we preach and incorporate some movement and standing breaks into our daily lives and learning activities. Some of my Pragmatic peers suggested walk-and-talks while doing group work, and there were plenty of green spaces nearby to move things outdoors. Granted, the course was in London in October… so the sunny days were few and far between. But as I’ve heard from many a Scot back in Edinburgh, “there’s no bad weather, only poor planning”. Anyways, I hope I kept the gushing to a minimum. All I can say now is thank you to the Pragmatics for putting on such a stellar class. I cannot recommend it highly enough for others interested in pragmatic evaluation. Signing off for now, though you can expect a post in the very near future about ISPAH, Audrey
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Author. About.Audrey Buelo. PhD student at the University of Edinburgh. (Mostly) professional and research-related musings - with the odd cat picture. Archives
April 2019
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