Research and Communication Skills

A Collection of Material for Research and Communication Skills

Information skills for research - basic

Search strategy and free text searching of database resources for Health Sciences

Research & Communication Skills (RCS) Weekly sessions (2013/14)

Slides and materials from each weeks session in one handy location

A project to improve the information seeking skills and increase the use of evidence-based research in public health practice

The ability of public health practitioners (PHPs) to work efficiently and effectively is negatively impacted by their lack of knowledge of the broad range of evidence-based practice information resources and tools that can be utilized to guide them in their development of health policies and programs. This project, a three-hour continuing education hands-on workshop with supporting resources, was designed to increase knowledge and skills of these resources. The workshop was presented as a pre-conference continuing education program for the Texas Public Health Association (TPHA) 2008 Annual Conference. Topics included: identification of evidence-based practice resources to aid in the development of policies and programs; identification of sources of publicly available data; utilization of data for community assessments; and accessing and searching the literature through a collection of databases available to all citizens of Texas. Supplemental resources included a blog that served as a gateway to the resources explored during the presentation, a community assessment workbook that incorporates both Healthy People 2010 objectives and links to reliable sources of data, and handouts providing additional instruction on the use of the resources covered during the workshop.^ Before- and after-workshop surveys based on Kirkpatrick's 4-level model of evaluation and the Theory of Planned Behavior were administered. Of the questions related to the trainer, the workshop, and the usefulness of the workshop, participants gave "Good" to "Excellent" responses to all one question. Confidence levels overall increased a statistically significant amount; measurements of attitude, social norms, and control showed no significant differences before and after the workshop. Lastly, participants indicated they were likely to use resources shown during the workshop within a one to three month time period on average. ^ The workshop and creation of supplemental resources served as a pilot for a funded project that will be continued with the development and delivery of four 4-week long webinar-based training sessions to be completed by December 2008. ^

The development and operation of the effective interpersonal relationship skills relevant to career development problems from staff assessment at an industrial research laboratory

This study concerns the application of a model of effective interpersonal relationships to problems arising from staff assessment at I.C.I. Ltd. Corporate Laboratory between 1972 and 1974. In collaboration with academic and industrial supervision, the study commenced with a survey of management and supervisor opinions about the effectiveness of current staff (work) relationships, with particular reference to the problem of recognising and developing creative potential. This survey emphasised a need to improve the relationships between staff in the staff assessment context. A survey of research into creativity emphasised the importance of the interpersonal environment for obtaining creative behaviour in an organisation context. A further survey of theories of how inter­personal behaviour related to personal creativity (therapeutic psychology) provided a model of effective interpersonal behaviour (Carkhuff, 1969) that could be applied to the organisation context of staff assessment. The objective of the project was redefined as a need to improve the conditions of interpersonal behaviour in relation to certain (career development) problems arising from staff assessment practices. In order to demonstrate the application of the model of effective interpersonal behaviour, the research student recorded interviews between himself and members of staff designed to develop and operate the dimensions of the model. Different samples of staff were used to develop the 'facilitative' and the 'action oriented' dimensions of bahaviour, and then for the operation of a helping programme (based on vocational guidance tests). These interactions have been analysed, according to the scales of measurement in the model ana the results are presented in case study form in this thesis. At each stage of the project, results and conclusions were presented to the sponsoring organisation (e.g. industrial supervisor) in order to assess their (subjective) opinion of relevance to the organ­ isation. Finally, recommendations on further actions towards general improvement of the work relationships in the laboratory were presented in a brief report to the sponsor.

Menedzsment képességek és döntéshozatali közelítésmódok longitudinális elemzése a versenyképesség kutatások alapján = Longitudinal analysis of management skills and decision making approaches in Competitiveness Research

Absztrakt: Tanulmányunkban a menedzsment képességek és döntéshozatali közelítésmódok szerepét a versenyképesség alakításában immáron negyedik alkalommal elemezzük. Hogy megértsük, milyen tulajdonságokkal, egyéni képességekkel kell a menedzsmentnek rendelkeznie ahhoz, hogy önmaga is versenyképes legyen, és feltárjuk, melyek a mintában szereplő menedzserek erősségei, illetve gyenge pontjai – a korábbi kutatások hagyományait követve – azt vizsgáltuk, hogy a mintában szereplő menedzserek hogyan értékelik önmagukat bizonyos készségek, képességek szerint, valamint azt is áttekintettük, hogy a menedzserek milyen döntéshozatali közelítésmódokat alkalmaznak. A megkérdezett menedzserekre - akárcsak a korábbi válaszadókra - a gyakorlatorientáltság, a magas szintű szakmai ismeretek birtoklása és a fejlett problémamegoldó képesség jellemző leginkább, illetve a nemzetközi trendekkel némiképp szemben a racionális döntéshozatali megközelítést preferálják. _____ We have been analyzing the role of management skills and decision making approaches in firm level competitiveness for the fourth time already. In order to understand what characteristics and individual capabilities a manager must have to be competitive him/herself, and what the main strengths and weaknesses of the Hungarian managers are, following the methodologies of our earlier studies, self assessment of the skills and capabilities of the managers in our sample were examined. The managers – similarly to the earlier results – are practice oriented, they possess up-to-date professional knowledge, and they have good problem solving skills. Our findings demonstrate that they prefer rational decision making approaches, which contradicts to the international tendencies.

A HARD PUSH FOR SOFT SKILLS: AN EXAMINATION OF POLICY AND RESEARCH ON NON-COGNITIVE SKILLS IN CANADIAN K-12 SCHOOLING

Non-cognitive skills have caught the attention of current education policy writers in Canada. Within the last 10 years, almost every province has produced a document including the importance of supporting non-cognitive skills in K-12 students in the classroom. Although often called different names (such as learning skills, cross curricular competencies, and 20th Century Skills) and occasionally viewed through different lenses (such as emotional intelligence skills, character skills, and work habits), what unifies non-cognitive skills within the policy documents is the claim that students that are strong in these skills are more successful in academic achievement and are more successful in post-secondary endeavors. Though the interest from policy-makers and educators is clear, there are still many questions about non-cognitive skills that have yet to be answered. These include: What skills are the most important for teacher’s to support in the classroom? What are these skills’ exact contributions to student success? How can teachers best support these skills? Are there currently reliable and valid measures of these skills? These are very important questions worth answering if Canadian teachers are expected to support non-cognitive skills in their classrooms with an already burdened workload. As well, it can begin to untangle the plethora of research that exists within the non-cognitive realm. Without a critical look at the current literature, it is impossible to ensure that these policies are effective in Canadian classrooms, and to see an alignment between research and policy. Upon analysis of Canadian curriculum, five non-cognitive skills were found to be the most prevalent among many of the provinces: Self-Regulation, Collaboration, Initiative, Responsibility and Creativity. The available research literature was then examined to determine the utility of teaching these skills in the classroom (can students improve on these skills, do these skills impact other aspects of students’ lives, and are there methods to validly and reliably assess these skills). It was found that Self-Regulation and Initiative had the strongest basis for being implemented in the classroom. On the other hand, Creativity still requires a lot more justification in terms of its impact on students’ lives and ability to assess in the classroom.

Current findings from research on professional librarian skills development and needs in Brazil

This paper presents reflections on the outcome of a research project conducted at the School of Communications and Arts of the University of São Paulo, regarding librarian training, their field of expertise and the need for continued education. The methodological design compiled in the research project involved planning-presenting project, and developing the questionnaire for data collection. The electronic form was applied to an intentionally random, stratified sample of 18,374 active librarians throughout Brazil, totalling 3,320 responses that were statistically treated and compiled. Once the data was collected using the electronic forms, we analysed the collected information and the literature, cleansed the information and standardized the bibliographic records and statistical processing of data that formed the results presented in this research project. As the world gets more sophisticated and diversified, the competence required of the professional librarian, which in a first stage is highly technical – remembering that it is impossible to dispose of or move forward without it being well established – grows and includes other important responsibilities in the new organizational environment. We must work towards a holistic qualification, valuing management, methodological, cultural, multidisciplinary and systemic skills – all highlighted in the economy of knowledge.

Talking about watching : using the video card game and wiki-web technology to engage IT students in developing observational skills.

Designers need to develop good observational skills in order to conduct user studies that reveal the subtleties of human interactions and adequately inform design activity. In this paper we describe a game format that we have used in concert with wiki-web technology, to engage our IT and Information Environments students in developing much sharper observational skills. The Video Card Game is a method of video analysis that is suited to design practitioners as well as to researchers. It uses the familiar format of a card game similar to "Happy Families,, to help students develop themes of interactions from watching video clips. Students then post their interaction themes on wiki-web pages, which allows the teaching team and other students to edit and comment on them. We found that the tangible (cards), game, role playing and sharing aspects of this method led to a much larger amount of interaction and discussion between student groups and between students and the teaching team, than we have achieved using our traditional teaching methods, while taking no more time on the part of the teaching staff. The quality of the resulting interaction themes indicates that this method fosters development of observational skills.In the paper we describe the motivations, method and results in full. We also describe the research context in which we collected the videotape data, and how this method relates to state of the art research methods in interaction design for ubiquitous computing technology.