An Evaluation of Lettersmith: A Technology Tool to Support Transparency of Assigned Public Health Writing

Educational technology can be used in the design of transparent writing assignments to support students in meeting learning outcomes. Lettersmith is a free online educational technology that aims to assist students in understanding and completing their writing assignments. In this Original Research paper, we describe a transparently designed public health writing assignment that used Lettersmith and evaluate whether undergraduate public health students perceived improvements in their writing skills after incorporating Lettersmith into a semester-long writing assignment and whether students perceived Lettersmith and its features as useful for supporting their writing. To implement the transparent design, student participants ( n = 64) received explicit instructions about the purpose of the blog writing assignment and used Lettersmith as a tool to support their writing. We used pre- and post-surveys with closed- and open-ended questions to collect participant responses. Participants perceived that their writing skills improved after using Lettersmith to complete the blog writing assignment. The skills that participants prioritized while writing were highly pertinent to public health practice, such as communicating scientific research to a general audience. Most participants recommended that public health instructors use Lettersmith in other courses and specified that the tagging function of Lettersmith improved their writing process. This evaluation of Lettersmith integrated into a transparently designed public health writing assignment suggests that the implementation of such tools can support the writing process, improve the writing of undergraduate public health students, and foster public health communication skills.