Understanding Of Research Design Research Articles

PhD by Prospective Publication in Australian Business Schools: Provocations from a Collaborative Autoethnography

Aim/Purpose: The goal of this essay is to critically reflect on the emerging trend for PhDs by Prospective Publication (PbPP) in Australian Business Schools and to explore its appropriateness for fledgling academics. Background: The PbPP is a relatively new and increasingly popular alternative to traditional PhD by monograph (PbM). It is the idea that a doctorate can be completed by writing a series of papers that are published, or close to being published, as journal articles or book chapters. For students, it offers the chance to get a head-start on their publishing careers and helps them find their first academic jobs. For supervisors working in an academic environment increasingly characterized by ‘publish or perish’ dynamics, it guarantees meaningful rewards from doctoral supervision. However, despite the attractiveness of publishing during candidature, it is a very different way to complete a doctorate with many challenges for students, supervisors, and institutions. Methodology: We adopted critical collaborative autoethnography. Through this method, we reflect on our experience supervising and administrating PbPP students and integrate our reflections with the literature on PbPPs to highlight policy concerns and our position on them. Contribution: We argue that the primary goal of the PbPP is to produce students who can conduct research collaboratively after graduation, as opposed to people who can conduct independent research, although the two outcomes are not mutually exclusive. We also argue that assessment of PbPP should be significantly enhanced to determine the nature of the student’s contribution to the thesis, their understanding of research design, and their broader understanding of their subject. Finally, we argue that despite the attractiveness of PbPP, it can only be successfully attempted by students with elite levels of intellect, dedication, critical analytical skills, language skills, resilience, and patience and supervisors with expertise in the field of study, experience of publishing different types of paper, familiarity with the working of the journal publication process, and workload capacity. Findings: PbPP theses should be examined by viva voce. Viva voce examinations of PbPP theses should determine (1) the nature of the doctoral candidates’ contribution to the thesis, (2) whether it is sufficient for the award of a doctorate, (3) the contributions of the papers to advancing the field of research, and (4) the students’ understanding of the theory in their field. Viva voce examinations of PbPP theses should seek to discover the student’s ability to contribute to collaborative efforts of research teams. PbPP students should also sit an examination of their understanding of research philosophy, design, methodologies, and related topics. It should be externally set, administered, and marked by an independent examination board. PbPP candidates need to demonstrate excellent ‘research English’ language skills before commencing. Recommendations for Practitioners: PbPP candidates need excellent intellectual skills – as a rough guide, probably in the top quartile of doctoral candidates. PbPP candidates need to be resilient and able to cope with failure, criticism, and rejection. PbPP candidates need high levels of patience. PbPP candidates should be encouraged to produce their first manuscript early in their candidature. PbPP supervision requires supervisors with advanced levels of subject knowledge, research skills, and publishing outputs. PbPP supervision requires expertise across various forms of research and types of output. Due to the wide range of skills and experience, PbPP supervision is likely to require a team approach. Recommendation for Researchers: As the PbPP grows in popularity, it challenges educational researchers to explore this emerging phenomenon. Does it take a particular type of person to thrive through this process? Does it need supervisors with particular characteristics? How does the experience of PbPP supervisors differ to the experience of PbM supervisors? Do PbPP graduates differ in their abilities to PbM graduates? Impact on Society: People graduating with PhDs typically enter influential and important jobs in society. It is vital that they have the knowledge, skills, and abilities that the qualification confers. In Australia, the PbPP challenges this credibility due to issues of co-authorship, selective study, and shallow assessment. These matters need to be understood and rectified to prevent a loss of credibility in Australia’s Higher Education institutions and its graduates. Future Research: Are there any differences in the knowledge, skills, and abilities of PbPP and PbM graduates? Studies are needed of the characteristics prospective PbPP students need to be successful taking this doctoral route. How does the nature of supervision differ between PbPP and PbM? What is the impact on the skills and abilities supervisors need and the implications for workload? What jobs do PbPP graduates go into and does this differ to PbM graduates? What resistance will the proposals made in this essay meet?

The Scientist-Practitioner

The purpose of the current work is to present a case for the need to train all graduate students in the field of education in quantitative methodology. The premise for this position is that practitioners like researchers benefit from such training. Through an understanding of research design and statistics, teachers, school leaders, counselors, etc. may become scientist-educators who engage in evidence-based practice, engage in strong educator-researcher collaborations, and possibly join the professoriate and prepare the next generation of scientist-educators. The underlying theme of the article is the extension of the Boulder Model from psychology, the scientist-clinician model, to education in order to benefit all educational practitioners and those with whom they work.

Journal Clubs During Advanced Pharmacy Practice Experiences to Teach Literature-Evaluation Skills

To determine pharmacy students' attitudes and academic performance related to journal club during 2 advanced pharmacy practice experiences (APPEs). Fourth-year pharmacy students were required to complete 3 journal club assignments during drug information and internal medicine APPEs. A majority (91.3%) of the 105 students who responded to a 21-item survey instrument indicated that journal club assignments during the drug-information APPE were valuable to their understanding of research design and statistics. Students who completed the drug-information APPE before the internal medicine APPE scored higher on their understanding of the strengths and weaknesses and the clinical relevance of studies and had a higher learning slope (p = 0.01) than did students who completed the internal medicine APPE first. Incorporating journal clubs into APPEs is an effective means of teaching literature-evaluation skills to pharmacy students.

Research-Informed Learning in the Psychology Curriculum: An Initial Evaluation

Research-informed teaching and learning have become an important area for development in psychology departments. There is an assumption that staff research can enhance the curriculum and the student experience. The methods of research and statistical awareness are also deemed important skills for a student in professional psychology to develop. This article reports an evaluation of the degree to which research informs staff teaching and the impact of research methods teaching on student employability. Undergraduate students and recent graduates were surveyed in a mixed qualitative and quantitative research design involving questionnaires, focus groups and a job analysis. A discrepancy was found between lecturers' and students' views of the extent to which staff's research informed their teaching. While lecturers regarded themselves as researchers as well as teachers, students regarded them as mainly teachers and ‘entertainers’. Where staff did refer to their own research to illustrate their teaching they were regarded as enthusiastic and authoritative. Staff-led projects in particular had a positive impact on both students and staff as they appeared to enhance group identity among the students involved and to improve students' understanding of research design. The focus on research, research methods, statistics and research ethics appears to have led some students to develop a critical attitude to events and information in the media and everyday life.

A Library Journal Club as a Tool for Current Awareness and Open Communication: University of British Columbia case study

Keyword Continuing Education, Academic Libraries, Journal Club, Canadian Libraries, Professional Development Journal clubs are well-established in many scientific disciplines as a means for academics and students to discuss research and topics of interest. In 1875, Sir William Osler started the first recorded medical journal club at McGill University. Osler realized the advantages of sharing ideas in a social milieu, and encouraged journal club participants to apply the knowledge they gleaned to relevant patient cases (Kraemer 136-137; Linzer 475-478). The structure of journal clubs varies from institution to institution, and from profession to profession. However, most tend to meet regularly to discuss research articles and improve their understanding of research design, statistics and critical appraisal methods. Some overlapping goals include developing critical analysis skills, promoting the value of research and scholarship, and networking with peers (Deenadayalan et al. 898-911). The origin of journal clubs in academic librarianship is unclear. Their usefulness, however is well-demonstrated as a collective effort, enabling librarians to read the literature and apply it accordingly. Unfortunately, library professionals often do not have enough time to discuss issues found in the literature, even if they impact day-to-day operations. Why is this? Professional staff are often absorbed with other tasks, duties and responsibilities. Moreover, innovative issues are less likely to be disseminated for discussion (Hickman and Allen 642-644). Certainly, some dialogue takes place informally between individuals, but outside of a context in which more individuals could benefit professionally by sharing opinions and experiences. Without such a forum, many new ideas have little chance of succeeding. Professional communication in the workplace therefore, is often not as rigorous as it might be. Staff meetings historically draw a large professional audience, but typically these meetings use a formal reporting structure that does not accommodate a more relaxed dialogue around related or pertinent topics (Hickman and Allen 642-644). Moreover, staff meetings do not work for big academic libraries that have numerous branch locations on campus. Library literature does not offer much research on journal clubs. That said, it seems clear that such clubs, whether formal or informal, are not common in academic libraries (Kraemer 136-137; Hickman and Allen 642-644; Pearce-Smith 32-40; Tomlin 1-3). Fortunately, journal clubs are well-covered in the health sciences professional literature (Ebbert, Montori and Schultz 455-461; Goodfellow 107-110; Melchior and Meals 972-976; Sidorov 1193-1197) and were recently the focus of two systematic reviews that examine clubs and their effectiveness as tools for continuing education (Deenadayalan et al. 898-911; Ebbert, Montori and Schultz 455-461). The author of this article felt that starting a journal club at the University of British Columbia (UBC) Library could assist library staff in staying abreast of research in library science. UBC Library is the third-largest academic library in Canada and consistently ranks among the top university research libraries in North America. UBC Library is spread across the campus and the city of Vancouver and has 21 branches and divisions. Its diverse staff of more than 300 employees includes librarians, support, management and professional staff. Health sciences research suggests that one characteristic of a successful journal club is the establishment of regular meetings and appropriate times (Deenadayalan et al. 898-911). At UBC, we decided to meet monthly, starting in April 2008. No meetings were held, however, during the busiest and quietest months (when librarians are away for vacations) - September, January and August. Meeting times are consistent and advertised on the journal club's blog, found at http://blogs. …

Advancing Medical Radiation Technologist-Led Scholarship: Practical Advice for Ensuring Success

Although it is true that the process of translating a research idea into a publishable scientific review article or a fundable research grant proposal takes time, hard work, and commitment, a success in such work is immensely satisfying. The aim of this article is to provide some practical advice to scholars aspiring to scientific writing and/or research in the medical radiation technologies. The importance of developing effective mentor/mentee relationships and, an understanding of research design and the evidence-based decision making process, to success in scholarship, is discussed. Suggestions for the development of these attributes are provided.

How to run an effective journal club: a systematic review

Health-based journal clubs have been in place for over 100 years. Participants meet regularly to critique research articles, to improve their understanding of research design, statistics and critical appraisal. However, there is no standard process of conducting an effective journal club. We conducted a systematic literature review to identify core processes of a successful health journal club. We searched a range of library databases using established keywords. All research designs were initially considered to establish the body of evidence. Experimental or comparative papers were then critically appraised for methodological quality and information was extracted on effective journal club processes. We identified 101 articles, of which 21 comprised the body of evidence. Of these, 12 described journal club effectiveness. Methodological quality was moderate. The papers described many processes of effective journal clubs. Over 80% papers reported that journal club intervention was effective in improving knowledge and critical appraisal skills. Few papers reported on the psychometric properties of their outcome instruments. No paper reported on the translation of evidence from journal club into clinical practice. Characteristics of successful journal clubs included regular and anticipated meetings, mandatory attendance, clear long- and short-term purpose, appropriate meeting timing and incentives, a trained journal club leader to choose papers and lead discussion, circulating papers prior to the meeting, using the internet for wider dissemination and data storage, using established critical appraisal processes and summarizing journal club findings.

ACC/AHA/AAP RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TRAINING IN PEDIATRIC CARDIOLOGY

ACC/AHA/AAP RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TRAINING IN PEDIATRIC CARDIOLOGY

Challenging the exceptional student: A 3‐year honors program research elective

For students who excel academically during their first year in medical school, we offer an Honors Research Program that provides a 3‐year in‐depth research experience in addition to the medical curriculum. Applications are accepted and interviews conducted at the end of the first year. Students choose their own mentors and projects; however, the choice of mentor and an outline of the research must be approved by the Honors Program Committee. Annually, the candidates present their data at the Honors Program Colloquium and submit written progress reports. In addition, each senior gives a seminar and writes a thesis. A survey of graduates indicates that this program gave them a better understanding of research design and interpretation, assisted in obtaining residencies, and had a positive influence on career decisions in academic medicine. This program offers an alternative for students who are interested in an in‐depth research experience, but do not wish to pursue an MD/PhD pathway.