HLTH460–14S1 (C) and HLTH 462 Critical Appraisal in Health Research and Health Interventions Research Methods !0.2500 EFTS (HLTH 460) and 0.125 (HLTH 462): Common Syllabus

Date and Time: 6th March 2014, Thursday - 7th March 2014, Friday

At: Wheki 105, Wheki Building, College of Education, University of Canterbury

Lecturers and Course Coordinator: Dr Arin Basu [AB] - course coordinator. For all course related queries, please contact Arin Basu at any of the following ways:

Cell Phone: 022 629 0356

Desk phone: 03 345 8161 or in campus, extension 44161

Twitter direct message: arinbasu1

Email: arindam.basu@canterbury.ac.nz

Professor Philip Schluter [PS].

Goal The goal of this course is to develop skills and knowledge of critical appraisal of health research and research methods. In this course, you will learn how to interpret research designs, make sense of health research data, reports, review literature, write grants and research proposals.

Learning Outcomes Following successful completion of this course, a student will be able to:

- Frame answerable research questions for specific health related research - Identify an appropriate epidemiological study design for the research - Describe and understand the differences between correlation and causation - Develop a plan of data analysis - Write a short research proposal - Argue on the strength and weaknesses of different health related study designs

Timetable

• The course will be delivered in one block of two days on March 6th (Thursday) and 7th (Friday), 2014

• The classes will be held in Wheki 105 • Attendance to all sessions is mandatory unless the student has made prior

arrangement with the course coordinator not to attend one or more sessions • All lecture materials, notes, and audio/video materials and links will be made available

through Learn after the completion of the course

Sessions Day One: 6th March, 2014, Wheki 105, Thursday, 9 AM - 4 PM

Session One: Introduction to Research Design

09:00–09:30: [AB and PS] Introduction to the course, housekeeping, answering student questions, demonstration of the “Learn” Site

09:30–09:45: Morning Tea

09:45–10:15: [AB] Overview and Introduction to Research Process in Health Care (Allow 5 minutes to change to the next topic) 10:20–11:20: [AB] Types of Study Designs (Allow 5 minutes gap) 11:25–11:55: [AB] Measures of Association (Correlation, Odds Ratio, Relative Risk, Coefficients,) (Allow 5 minutes gap) 12:00–12:30: [AB] Theories of Causation (“Correlation does not imply causation”, Discussion of Hill’s Criteria, Discussion of Rothman’s Pie, Attributable risk)

12:30–13:15: Lunch Break

Session Two: Planning Your Own Research

13:15–13:45: [AB] How to Frame A Research Question (Research as Reflective Practice, PICO framework (Population, Intervention/Exposure, Comparator, Outcomes), (Allow 5 minutes gap) 13:50–14:20: [AB] Selecting a Method of Study (Primary versus Secondary Research, Reanalysis of Existing Data versus Systematic Review and Meta Analysis, Intervention studies versus observational epidemiological studies, Single case study design versus epidemiological study design) (Allow 5 minutes gap) 14:25–15:00: [PS] Introduction to Hypothesis Testing (concepts of null and alternative hypothesis, Type I and Type II errors, interpretation of p-values, confidence intervals, statistical significance versus substantive significance)

15:00–15:15: Afternoon Tea

15:15-16:00: [PS] Class exercise:

During these discussions, structured abstracts of one or more research papers will be distributed to the students who will be divided into groups and they will be asked to review the papers among themselves for the first fifteen minutes based on the structured abstracts. The instructors will then join the student groups in the discussions, highlighting texts from the full texts to reinforce the points discussed earlier in the day.

Day Two: 7th March, 2014, Friday, 9 AM – 4:30 PM, Wheki 105

Session Three: Prepare to Collect Data

09:00–09:30: [PS] Sample Size and Power. (Point to reinforce that power calculation should not be post hoc)

Session Four: Data Analysis

09:30–10:15: [PS] Principles of Data Analysis (Data preprocessing, setting up hypothesis, measurements and variables - nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio, single variable descriptive stats what to report, bivariable and analyses of data, may also include ideas about modelling, fitting data to models, and models to data (discussion about data-model fitting)

10:15–10:30: Morning Tea

10:30–11:00: [PS] Class exercise11:00–12:00: [PS] Principles of Data Analysis continued (confounding and bias, interactions, multivariable models, validity and reliability of an instrument)

12:00–12:45: Lunch

12:45–14:30: [AB] Principles of Data Analyses for Secondary data for information synthesis such as systematic reviews and meta analyses (steps of systematic reviews, principles of literature search (actual literature search needs to be demonstrated by librarians and students may be asked to book sessions with the librarians, we can deal with the basic principles), critical appraisal of risk of bias, quality appraisal of studies, and if possible and time permits, how to synthesise information for meta analyses. Nothing hands on but demonstration)

14:30–14:45: Afternoon Tea

14:45–15:00: [AB] Discussion of the topics covered till this time 15:00–16:00: [AB] Writing and Preparing Research Proposals 15:00–15:30: Principles of Research Ethics and Filling in Ethics Form (5 minutes break)

15:35–16:05: Elements to be covered in writing a research proposal for Theses, Dissertations, and Funding

Session Five: Conclusion

16:05–16:30: [AB and PS] Valedictory Session and filling in course surveys, student questions and answers

HLTH 462 students will then need to work with the course coordinators and lecturers to identify a topic for their research proposal. HLTH 460 students will in addition identify a series of readings that they will complete with the course coordinators till end of Semester One.

Assessments Two assessments are planned for this course. These are as follows:

Assessment One: A Mid-Term Open Book Examination To Test the Concepts Taught (40%)

This will be a 10 item, short answer type, open book test examination just before the mid semester break, roughly one month after the block course completion. The test will be of three hour duration, open book, and practice examination will be uploaded on Learn to familiarise students with the examination type and format after completion of the block course. The examination must be completed in “Learn” and online.

Assessment Two: Submission of a Research Proposal (60%)

This will be a 1500 word length research proposal in the prescribed format containing only of the following sections (Introduction or Background, Research Questions, Methodology, References). The word limit will exclude Tables and Figures (although maximum of three Tables and Two Figures will be allowed). References will need to be in APA 6th Edition style. The Research Proposal will be due on the last day of the class for the first semester for HLTH 460 students, and last day of the class for the second semester for HLTH 462 students.