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Critical Appraisal

  • 9:30am to 5pm
  • 1 day

Overview

This short course aims to improve your ability to critically appraise published research - a key skill for anyone involved in using and/or undertaking research.

You'll look at the importance of defining a meaningful research question, and the key factors involved in answering a research question in an efficient and valid way.

The topics covered will help you design your own research study and/or evaluate existing published material.

This course will be delivered face-to-face in a UCL lecture room.

This course is delivered by UCL's Centre for Applied Statistics Courses (CASC), part of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health (ICH).

Course content

You'll look at the following topics:

  • Defining a research question
  • Observational and experimental study designs
  • Sampling and randomisation
  • Bias and confounding
  • Research protocols, checklists and records
  • Competing study designs
  • Displays and analysis of data
  • Common pitfalls in analysis
  • Reporting of results
  • Validity of the results with respect to the research question

You'll have the opportunity to examine sample research design and appraisal checklists, and to apply the skills gained throughout the day via practical appraisal activities.

Pre-course reading

You'll be sent a research paper in advance of the course. You should read this paper in order to be able to participate fully in the final practical session.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this course you should be able to:

  • understand when critical appraisal might be useful
  • access relevant web resources and checklists
  • understand the strengths and limitations of checklists for appraisal
  • understand how to evaluate the analyses performed by others
  • identify the components of a research question
  • understand different approaches to addressing a defined research question and evaluate the use of these
  • recognise which statistical tests are appropriate in different situations

Certificates

You can request a certificate of attendance for this course once you've completed it. Please send your request to ich.statscou@ucl.ac.uk

Include the following in your email:

  • the name of the completed course for which you'd like a certificate
  • how you'd like your name presented on the certificate (if the name/format differs from the details you gave during registration)

Cost and concessions

The fees are as follows:

  • External delegates (non UCL) - £150
  • UCL staff, students, alumni - £75*
  • ICH/GOSH staff and students - free

* valid UCL email address and/or UCL alumni number required upon registration

Cancellations

Read the cancellation policy for this course on the ICH website. Please send all cancellation requests directly to the course administrator

Find out about other statistics courses

CASC's stats courses are for anyone requiring an understanding of research methodology and statistical analyses. The courses will allow non-statisticians to interpret published research and/or undertake their own research studies.

Find out more about CASC's full range of statistics courses, and the continuing statistics training scheme (book six one-day courses and get a seventh free.) 

Course team

Dr Catalina Rivera Suarez

Dr Catalina Rivera Suarez

Catalina has been an Associate Lecturer (Teaching) at CASC since January 2021. She has a PhD in Psychology and an MSc in Applied Statistics from Indiana University. She’s passionate about teaching courses in research methods, statistics, and statistical software. Catalina’s research focuses on studying how caregivers support the development of children's attentional control and language. She implements multilevel modeling techniques to investigate the moment-to-moment dynamics of shared joint visual engagement, as well as the quality of the language input, influencing infant learning and sustained attention at multiple timescales.  

Dr Manolis Bagkeris

Dr Manolis Bagkeris

Manolis has a BSc in Statistics and Actuarial-Financial Mathematics from the University of the Aegean and an MSc in Medical Statistics from the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB). He’s worked as a research assistant at University of Crete, UCL and Imperial College London. He’s been working at CASC since November 2021, providing short courses in research methods and statistics for people who want to develop or enhance their knowledge in interpreting and undertaking their own research. His interests include paediatric epidemiology, clinical and population health, HIV, mental health and development. He was awarded a PhD from UCL in 2021 on the topic of frailty, falls, bone mineral density and fractures among HIV-positive and HIV-negative controls in England and Ireland.

Learner reviews

"Thank for all efforts [...]. I think this kind of course provides good opportunities to the clinicians to learn statistics, design new studies, interpretation of the results and will improve their research skills."

"Good course to attend."

"Very informative and well presented course."

Course information last modified: 18 Mar 2024, 09:54