Abstract

This paper explores the use and implications of using a constructivist approach to assessing understanding of selected health-related concepts among a group of primary (elementary) school trainee teachers (n = 23) enrolled in a Health Education module. One of the aims of the module is to build health literacy among the teachers so that they can in turn promote health literacy among school children. Misconceptions can be a significant barrier to the promotion of health literacy, and therefore they should be carefully addressed during teacher training programmes. In this study, a problem-based task was implemented pre- and post-test to assess trainee teachers’ conceptual understanding of plant sources of protein, protein quality and complementary proteins. The constructivist model of learning was taken into consideration in the design of the task to determine whether trainee teachers had a sound knowledge of the different concepts and whether they could integrate these concepts to analyse the given problematic real-life situation. The problem-based task was found to be an effective tool in assessing the understanding of health-related concepts. Recommendations have also been made to further improve the effectiveness of this approach.