Functional Knowledge

A Characteristic of Effective Health Instruction

One characteristic of health education curriculum and instruction that contributes to acquiring, maintaining, and promoting healthy behaviors is that functional knowledge is taught. Instruction that emphasizes fun facts or focuses solely on increasing knowledge of factual information has not embraced the concept of functional knowledge. When school health educators are developing lesson plans and curriculum, they should ask themselves, “How does this information lead a young person toward living a healthy lifestyle?” If the content is being taught in isolation or does not provide basic facts and information students need to make behaviorally relevant decisions, then the information is not functional and should be reexamined as to the significance to learners.

When students are taught functional knowledge, they are provided with the information that contributes directly to their ability to engage in health-enhancing behaviors and avoid or reduce behaviors that lead to poor health. According to the National Health Education Standards emphasis should be placed on the most important and enduring health education ideas and concepts.

Examples

So much health information exists—facts, statistics, short- and long-term effects, definitions, classifications, and best practice recommendations to name some types. One might believe that being able to name and define different types of behavioral health issues is critical information for a high school student to acquire. However, if one were to ask the question, “How does this information help young people live a healthy lifestyle?” then this information would not be identified as functional knowledge. Knowing key signs and symptoms of mental illness and where to go for help would be concepts related to behavioral health that would be essential to health promotion and disease prevention.

While being familiar with human anatomy and physiology is important for a health teacher, being able to label body parts for each body system is not critical for young people in terms of that information contributing to living a healthy lifestyle. Knowing key body parts and understanding simple physiology may be critical for students to understand short- and long-term effects of tobacco use on the body or the importance of engaging in cardiovascular fitness. But the practice of labeling body parts without a context for how it relates to health promotion and disease prevention fails to contribute to functional knowledge.

...