Research Skills Workshops

2014

Topics for 2014:

The programme is designed to give you the skills to make use of others’ research findings, but also to take the first steps in developing your own research project. For the first time this year there is a workshop aimed at people who have been through the whole process and now need to write up their work.

These include:

  1. Critical appraisal – a new e-learning package (p4)
  2. Disseminating your research (taught by Mary Hickson) (p5)
  3. Searching the literature(taught by Mary Hickson) (p6)
  4. Understanding statistics (taught by Seema Singh) (p7)
  5. Using and developing a questionnaire(taught by Mary Hickson) (p8)
  6. Selecting Robust Outcome Measures(taught by Donna Kennedy) (p9)

For dates please see page 3.

Who are the workshops for?

The workshops have been designed specifically for therapy and nursing staff. Staff from any part of the NHS or healthcare services will find them useful. Anyone interested in research and preparing to develop a research project will find them helpful. All the workshops are designed to give basic skills and assume little prior knowledge.

Where are the workshops held?

They are either at Charing CrossHospital (in Hammersmith) or HammersmithHospital (in East Acton) or St Mary’s Hospital (in Paddington). Please refer to the ‘how do I get there section?’ section for further details.

When are workshops held?

There is approximately one workshop per month but this does vary. See attached programme for details (p11). All workshops run from 1.30-4.30pm, accept “Writing up your research for publication”, which is held in the morning. All workshops include a short refreshment break.

How much do they cost?

The Workshops are free.

Can Students attend?

Therapy and pharmacy students on their clinical placement, who have honorary contracts with Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, can attend for free, but places are limited to 1 per workshop unless the workshop is undersubscribed.

Due to the need to limit the numbers attending the workshops students from other professions or from ImperialCollege are not eligible to attend for free, but are welcome as external paying candidates.

Tutors

The workshops are taught by various tutors with significant knowledge of the research process.

Booking

There are a maximum of 15 places on each workshop (apart from ‘Searching the literature’ when there are only 12 places) and some of these are reserved for internal candidates. To ensure you get a place please book as early as possible. To assist you with booking a place there is an application form that needs to be completed. You can obtain this form by emailing .

How to get there

  • Charing CrossHospital, Fulham Palace Road, London, W6 8RF. Nearest Tube: Hammersmith or Barons Court (District and Piccadilly lines)
  • HammersmithHospital, Du Cane Road, London, W12 0HS. Nearest tube: East Acton or WhiteCity (Central Line)
  • St Mary’s Hospital, Praed Street, LondonW2 1NY. Nearest tube: Paddington (Bakerloo, Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines)

Maps and full details of how to find us will be sent out with booking confirmations.

What to bring

Details of what you are expected to bring and any pre-course work will be emailed to you 1-2 weeks before the workshop.

RESEARCH SKILLS WORKSHOPS: Programme for 2014

Month / Workshop / Site / Venue / Date /Time
June / Understanding Statistics / CX / FULLY BOOKED / Tuesday 17th June
(1.30 – 4.30)
June / Disseminating Your Research / CX / Seminar Room 2
1st Floor Education Building CXH / Thursday 19th June
(1.30 – 4.30)
July / Searching the Literature / HH / IC Library
1st Floor, Commonwealth Building HH / Wednesday 6th August
(1.30 – 4.30)
October / Understanding Statistics / HH / Room to be confirmed / Wednesday 1st October
(1.30 – 4.30)
October / Questionnaires / SMH / Room 2
2nd Floor Education Centre, Mint Wing / Wednesday 8th October
(1.30 – 4.30)
November / Searching the Literature / HH / IC Library, Commonwealth Building / TBC
To be confirmed / Outcome Measures / CX / TBC / TBC

Workshop Details

Critical Appraisal

E-learning

The original face to face workshop has been replaced with an e-learning module which enables delegates to take the course at anytime. It takes approximately 2.5-3hours to do the whole e-learning module, which cover both randomised control trials and systematic review study designs. As part of the e-learning you will download real papers and appraise them with the help of the on-line resources. This course will help you participate confidently in journal clubs and it is recommended for all healthcare professionals. We recommend that new therapy staff complete the course within their first year at the Trust.

Aim: To enable participants to critically evaluate research papers so they can assess the value of the available evidence, and ensure it is incorporated into practice.

The workshop answers the following questions:

  1. What is critical appraisal and how does it help the clinician?
  2. How do I critically appraise original research papers?
  3. How do I critically appraise systematic reviews?
  4. How do I understand the statistics section?
  5. What other resources are out there to help me continue to develop my critical appraisal skills?
  6. What else can I do to practice these skills?

Disseminating your research

Thurs 19th June, 1.30 – 4.30 at CXH

Tutor: Dr Mary Hickson

This is a mixed session incorporating lecture, discussion and practical exercises. You will be planning how to disseminate research results and you may bring your own research if you wish. You will need to submit a summary of the aims, methods and results of your work.

The session is suitable for anyone who feels inexperienced in presenting or disseminating their research. It will be of particular values to people who are finishing a research project and are now thinking about how to disseminate their findings.

The session will not focus on specific presentation skills or the computer software skills involved in creating a poster.

Aim

To provide an overview of possible strategies to disseminate research results and findings, and to focus specifically on successful conference presentations and getting a paper accepted for publication in a peer review journal.

Objectives

Enable participants to:

  1. Plan the dissemination of their research findings
  2. Prepare an abstract of their research for submission to conferences
  3. Prepare to present at conference either with a poster, e-poster or oral presentation.
  4. Understand the process of getting research accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal
  5. Recognise and start to learn how to write in a clear and concise style.

Searching the literature

Weds 6th August 1.30 – 4.30 pm @ HH

November date to be confirmed(not yet available for booking via Yodel)

Tutor: Dr Mary Hickson

This is a hands-on session in the IT training room, so you will get the opportunity to use the databases and undertake a small search during the workshop.

Aim: To enable participants to search the literature comprehensively, in order to research the published literature prior to developing research or audit projects. Also to enable participants to find appropriate papers for journal club review.

Objectives

Enable participants to:

  1. Ask clearly focused questions about the problem they are interested in.
  2. List the available secondary sources of evidence
  3. List the available primary bibliographic databases
  4. To develop a research strategy and carry out a comprehensive search using one or more of the primary databases
  5. Be aware of the range of free services to them to help keep up to date in the research in their field

The workshop focuses mainly on using National Library for Health search engine, the free service available to NHS workers. We also look at Cochrane databases and PubMed.

Please note that for this workshop you will need to bring a valid NHS Athens username and password, which is freely available online ( or from your library.

Understanding statistics for non-mathematicians

Weds 1st October, 1.30 – 4.30 pm (site /venue to be confirmed – not yet available for booking on Yodel)

Tutor: Seema Singh

This is a very practical session incorporating both lecture and exercises. It is targeted at complete beginners and apart from basic maths you would learn at school, makes no assumptions about prior statistical knowledge.

Many people find statistics difficult and so the workshop is designed to help you get to grips with the terminology and the basic principles. There is little or no maths involved, you are not learning how to do a statistical analysis. You are learning how to understand and interpret statistics presented to you.

If your aim is to learn how to undertake an analysis of data this workshop will provide the first steps, but not all the knowledge you need. You will not learn how to use any statistical analysis packages.

Aim: To enable participants to understand the commonly used terms and statistical techniques, and to interpret statistics used in research.

Objectives

Enable participants to

  1. Understand basic statistical terms regarding different types of data, describing data sets, and distribution of data.
  2. Understand some of the concepts relating to populations, samples and probability.
  3. Be able to interpret a p-value and a confidence interval.
  4. Be able to explain the role of statistical hypothesis testing and confidence intervals when dealing with chance.
  5. To be able to interpret measures of association (relative risk, attributable risk, odds ratio) from simple examples.
  6. Define confounding and understand the problems associated with it. Be able to describe methods for dealing with confounding (including stratification, standardisation and regression).
  7. Decide how to analyse simple data sets.
  8. Develop their own glossary of statistical terminology.
  9. Increase their confidence in drawing conclusions about the results presented in papers.

Using and developing questionnaires in research or audit

Weds 8th October 1.30 – 4.30 pm @ SMH

Tutor: Dr Mary Hickson

This is a mixed session incorporating both lecture and practical exercises. You will be critically appraising a questionnaire and you may submit your own for this exercise if you wish. Participants in the past have found this extremely valuable.

If you would like to submit a questionnaire for critical appraisal during the workshop please say so when you book or at least 2 weeks before the workshop.

Aim: To enable participants to understand when to use questionnaires, identify what makes a good questionnaire, design and critically appraise a questionnaire, and plan a study involving questionnaires.

The workshop answers the following questions:

  1. When should I use a questionnaire, what sort of research is it good for and is it going to work for me?
  2. What steps should I take when designing a project that uses a questionnaire?
  3. What makes a good questionnaire?
  4. What makes a bad questionnaire?
  5. How do I ensure my questionnaire gets answered?
  6. What other issues do I need to be aware of when doing a research study using a questionnaire?

Selecting Robust Outcome Measures

To be Confirmed

Tutor: Donna Kennedy,

This is a mixed session incorporating lecture, discussion and practical exercises. You will have the opportunity to critical appraise an outcome measure with others and share your conclusions. This workshop is designed to empower participants with the skills necessary to identify outcome measures which are robust and appropriate for their setting.

Aim: To enable participants to apply an evidence-based approach to the selection of outcome measures which are psychometrically robust and clinically practical.

The workshop answers the following questions:

  1. What are standardised outcome measures?
  2. Why should I use standardised outcome measures?
  3. What steps do I take to search for and identify outcome measures?
  4. How do I understand the statistics used to describe validity, reliability and responsiveness?
  5. How do I appraise the practical elements of outcome measures such as respondent and administrative burden?
  6. How do I compare multiple outcome measures and select a measure appropriate for my purpose?

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