For detailed description of the assignments and marking, see the Assignments section

Description of Each Block

All classes for 2019 will be held at Wheki 105.

Block 1 (Critical reading of health research)

Day One, 27th February 2019, 9 AM - 3 PM
9 AM - 9:20 AM: Introduction to the course (Introduce each other and set the scene for the course)
9:20 AM - 9:30 AM: Morning break
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM: Session 1: Professor Vincent Mor will teach critical appraisal of literature
11:00 AM - 11:30 PM: Discussions among students and the teacher: select a research topic to work with
11:30-12:30 PM: Introduction to causal inference (assumptions, chance, bias, confounding, causal criteria) in health sciences
12:30 - 1:30 PM: Lunch break
1:30 PM - 3:00 PM: Workshop with journal articles: students will work to critique articles in identifying assumptions, understand how authors have ruled out chance, eliminated biases, controlled for confounding variables, and considered causal relationships in their papers when they reported research
Day Two, 28th February, 9 AM - 3 PM
9 AM - 10 AM: Identifying funding sources for your study - Dr Kathryn Mackinven will discuss how you can identify funding sources for your research
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM: Epidemiological and health sciences related study designs
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Workshop with health research identifying research designs and critiquing them
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Lunch  break
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Margaret Paterson will teach how to search health information using databases at Central LIbrary den
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM: Students will discuss their research ideas as preparation for the first assessment
 
Associated Assessment: Research Idea; deadline: 14th March, 2019, 5 PM via Learn

Block II (Epidemiological Data analysis)

Day One, 28th March, 9AM - 3 PM
9 AM - 10 AM: Session with Anton Angelo on finding data
10 AM - 3 PM: Epidemiological data analysis, part I
Day Two, 29th March, 9AM - 3 PM
9 AM - 3 PM: Epidemiological data analysis, part II
Assessment II: Report after analysis of data set, deadline 14th April, 2019, 5 PM, via Learn

Block III (Critical Writing of Research)

Day One, 9th May, 2018
9 AM - 10 AM: Introduction to STROBE
10 AM - 12:00 PM: Students examine journal articles using STROBE as a tool for composing journal articles
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM: Lunch break
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM:  Introduction to GRADE
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Students learn to use the web based GRADE tool for quality appraisal of available evidence
Day Two, 10th May, 2018
9 AM - 12:00 PM: Critical Writing of Research Papers using discourse analysis 
12:00-1:00 PM: Lunch break & distribution of research paper assignments
1:00 PM - 3:00 PM: Workshop on writing a Masters/PhD research proposal
Assessment III: Research Proposal, deadline: 25th May, 2019, 5 PM, via Learn

Assessment

Principles