INTRODUCTION TO CLINICAL RESEARCH METHODS TRAINING WORKSHOP

The University of Malawi’s College of Medicine (CoM), Blantyre, will run a two week intensive short course in Clinical Research Methods (CRM). The course will be taught by researchers and academics working at CoM and its affiliates. It is designed for postgraduates wishing to improve their research skills. The course will focus on skills relevant to the early stages of research projects.

1. Course Outline

The main objective of the course is to teach practical skills and understanding in research methodology. The topics to be covered will include:

1. Quantitative module: Days 1 to 5 (06^th – 10^th May)

A 5-day Module, structured into ten 2.5hr (1hr lecture/1.5hr practical) sessions. The aim of the module, is to introduce participants to quantitative research method designs. The module will cover:

• The principles of study design/Introduction to Stata

• Cases, populations and data types/Data types and summary
• Cross-sectional studies/ Introduction to cross-sectional data analysis
• Measures of occurrence and effect/ Introduction to cohort studies
• Power and sample size calculations/ Software for sample size calculations
• Causality, confounding and bias/ managing confounding in a data set
• Planning your analysis/ Getting started with statistical analysis plans
• Data collection tools/ Drafting a questionnaire
• Revision of epidemiology and statistics/ Data and analysis plans

2. Basic biomedical research methods module: Day 6 to 7 (13^th – 14^th May)

A 2-day module, structured into 2.5hr practical sessions. The aim of the module is to introduce participants to commonly encountered data analysis requirements and GraphPad Prism programme (a commonly used specialist data analysis programme). The module will cover:

• Introduction to basic biomedical research/ GraphPad Prism (practical)
• Diagnostic test evaluation/ Analysis of diagnostic evaluations (practical)
• Correlation between continuous variables/ Continuous variables and repeated measurements (practical)

3. Professional Support: Day 08 to 10 (15^th – 17^th May)

A 3-day Module, structured into 2.5hr (1.5hr lecture / 1hr practical) sessions. The aim of the module, is to equip participants with the basic skills and understanding required for quality research, including: ethics, financial management, advanced features of excel and access, information literacy, and to orientate participants to the standards expected of them in scientific writing, oral presentations, and documentation. The module will cover:

• Scientific writing and presentation
• Ethics of health research

• Principles of accounting, budgeting and grant management
• Advanced spreadsheets
• Database – MS ACCESS 2007
• Information literacy skills

2. Methods of Assessment and credits

       No formal assessment. Attendees will get a certificate of attendance and course materials.

3. Duration:

     2 weeks delivered course (excluding weekends), from 6^th to 17^th May.

4. Fees:

• US$200.00 for externals and US$100.00 for internals. Internals refer to postgraduate students from CoM and its affiliates.
• All payments are to be made to the cashier’s office, CoM either in cash or by cheque.
• Scholarships will be offered to few selected candidates on merit. The maximum award will be 5 and awardees will be notified within 10 days of application deadline.

5. Venue:

     College of Medicine, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Blantyre, Malawi.

6. Enrolment and Eligibility:

• We shall enroll a maximum of 30 participants. Selected candidates will be notified through emails to provide proof of payment within a specified period. Failure to do so, candidates shall forfeit their places.

• We shall consider all postgraduate applications received from students registered with accredited academic institutions in Malawi and overseas. Applicants registered or studying with University of Malawi’s College of Medicine and its research affiliates will be given a priority.

7. Tuition:

     All participants are expected to cover their travel and accommodation costs.

8. Registration:

   To apply, please Follow this link to download the application form ,complete it and  submit the Completed form to hnti@medcol.mw.

9. Application deadline:

• The deadline for receiving applications is 05^th April, 2019.

10. Feedback

• Successful candidates should expect to receive feedback by 15^th April, 2019.

• Because of the large volume of applications we usually receive for this course, we are unable to offer individual feedback to unsuccessful candidates.

11. Enquiries

• Any questions regarding the course, should be addressed to hnti@medcol.mw