Introduction to Research (MF_055)
About Study Course
Objective
To develop or promote research thinking and action skills, cooperation, and co-responsibility skills for study programme "Medicine" students.
Prerequisites
Compulsory content in general secondary education (acquired skills: critical thinking and problem solving; creativity and entrepreneurship; self-directed learning; collaboration and digital literacy).
Learning outcomes
Understanding of the scientific method; systematic methodology in evidence-based research; understanding how the scientific method is applied in scientific research; contrasting the different types of health research types and designs; relating how clinical research question arise; develop a research question using the PICO format; analyze a research question using the FINER frameworks; describe the relation between a research question, research objectives, tasks and research hypothesis; describe the structure of PubMed; identify the tools available on PubMed to identify scientific studies using keywords; Conduct a PubMed search using MeSH and/or keywords; apply search filters in PubMed when searching for scientific studies; conduct an efficient basic or advanced search in the Cochrane Library; Identify the main variables in a scientific study; distinguish between the independent and dependent variable; describe NOIR measurement scales; distinguish measurement scales in relation with study variables; differentiate between accuracy and validity of measurements.; describe the main sources of random error and bias in health research; calculate summary measures (mean, median, mode), measures of central tendency (standard deviations, reference range), and variability for quantitative variables using software; calculate summary measures for qualitative variables using a software (proportions, odds, ratios).; identify the structure of a scientific research paper; analyze the structure of a scientific research paper; understand how to plan a scientific manuscript; develop a strategy on how to read scientific publications efficiently; and know the basic principles of scientific writing.
Cooperate in a group; formulate the purpose and tasks of the research; analyze the theoretical literature; perform a PubMed search using MeSH and/or keywords using keywords; apply PubMed search filters; choose appropriate methods for the research; perform descriptive statistics calculations for quantitative and qualitative variables (mean, median, standard deviation, proportions, coefficients) using a statistical processing program; collect data; analyze data; present the results, evaluate the work of group members, recommend proposals for improving the work, perform mutual evaluation and reevaluation.
Combining theoretical knowledge with skills, will be able to integrate them in the development of the next studies and then also in the working career.
