Credit Points 10

Legacy Code 700064

Coordinator Charlise Bennett Opens in new window

Description This subject will consider the reasons and roles of evidence-based practice and research, and introduce students to their language and core concepts. Skills will be developed for asking clinical or professional healthcare questions and to translate these into search strategies for finding evidence. To make sense of that evidence, students will be introduced to quantitative and qualitative research methods, types of data, how data is described and how biostatistics is used to provide meaning to research data.

School Health Sciences

Discipline Health, Not Elsewhere Classified.

Student Contribution Band HECS Band 2 10cp

Check your HECS Band contribution amount via the Fees page.

Level Undergraduate Level 1 subject

Equivalent Subjects HLTH 1001 - Foundations of Research and Evidence-Based Practice

Restrictions

Students must be enrolled at Western Sydney University, The College. Students enrolled in Extended Diplomas must pass 40 credit points from the preparatory subjects listed in the program structure prior to enrolling in this University level subject. Students enrolled in the combined Diploma/Bachelor programs listed below must pass all College Preparatory subjects listed in the program structure before progressing to the Year 2 subjects.

Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this subject, students should be able to:

1. Recognise the background and reasons for evidence-based practice and health research
2. Design and perform an advanced search strategy for a PICO
3. Identify types and levels of evidence within the healthcare research continuum
4. Describe the ethical responsibilities for EBP and health research
5. Explain how data may be described and summarised in health research
6. Describe the core statistical concepts used to provide meaning from health research data
7. Integrate evidence into academic writing

Subject Content

Introduction to evidence-based practice
- Critical thinking: Type 1 and 2 system thinking
- The role of EBP: managing human bias, information and uncertainty
- Ethical and professional considerations in EBP
- 5 Step EBP process
- Steps 1/2: Formulating questions; Sources of evidence, Search strategies
- using evidence in academic writing
Introduction to research methods
- The role of research: enquiry and acquisition of knowledge
- Qualitative and quantitative designs
- levels of evidence
- Core research concepts (e.g. bias, Validity, reliability)
- Ethical considerations for research
Introduction to biostatistics
- types of data
- summarising and describing data
- interpreting common and inferential results
- clinical and statistical significance