Chapter one offers a breakdown of the certification program and the purpose of studying research methodology. We will discuss government-based initiatives, changing funding patterns, specific interventions and techniques as well as interpretation and misinformation of interventions.

Chapter two discusses history and offers clarification of evidence based medicine. This module also describes the key characteristics of evidence based medicine, the purpose of studying evidence and limitations of evidenced based practice.

Chapter three discusses the hierarchy of evidence and how the design of a study dictates the purpose. The module also discusses the evidence pyramid: 1) editorial, expert opinion, 2) case series, case reports, 3) case-control studies, 4) cohort studies, 5) randomized controlled trials, 6) systematic reviews.

Chapter four discusses how to sort conflicting evidence and look beyond the hierarchy of evidence pyramid to the five levels of evidence. The module outlines the five levels of evidence and how the evidence is useful to practicing clinicians.

Chapter five discusses the elements of a research study considering IMRaD: 1) introduction, 2) methods, 3) results, 4) discussion. The module will also discuss the conclusion of a study describing the most pertinent findings.

Chapter six discusses how research impacts practice and how to evaluate the impact factor of a study. The module also discusses H Index, I10 Index, effect size, total number of citations, altmetric scores, and funding.

Chapter 7 discusses salient points, provides additional readings and suggests takeaway knowledge.

Chapter one discusses the current research priorities at the time of the creation of this module. Priorities in the United States and beyond are dynamic and reflect the ever changing needs of the population and the abilities of health providers and policy makers to influence change.

Chapter two discusses the overarching role of public policy and defines health services research. This module discusses how health innovations have improved quality of life and the nature of those innovations. It also discusses the role of clinical practice guidelines in policy.

Chapter three discusses the initial purpose for comparative effectiveness research and how it’s been blended with other forms of research. This module discusses the challenges to performing good comparative research.

Chapter four discusses diagnostic accuracy, one of the most challenging study types in research. Diagnostic accuracy studies are expensive, difficult to design and are generally rarely funded. The module discusses the most common mistakes made in this form of research and the reporting mechanisms that are designed to improve the outcomes.

Chapter five is designed to introduce the learner to predictive validity studies and outcomes validation, including clinical prediction rules. Predictive validity studies are very popular in rehabilitation research and the pros and cons of each are discussed.

Chapter six addresses mechanistic and basic science research, two forms of research that are commonly associated with rehabilitation and medicine. Pros and cons as well as transferability of each type are addressed.

Chapter seven addresses the very timely topic of socio-behavioral science research. Socio-behavioral science research addresses the role of the patients situations and thoughts in their own recovery process.

The summary chapter discusses the salient points of the course and provides recommended readings to the learners to enhance the materials within the modules.

Chapter one introduces the learner to the foundations of statistical analysis including the advantages of developing a research team. This course will also describe the fundamentals of statistical analyses and how these probabilistic estimates apply to research design

Chapter two will identify the different types of data and how an investigator chooses statistical procedures based on data types. The learner will also be able to understand and describe the different types of variables and their importance in the statistical analysis upon completion of this chapter

Chapter three will compare and contrast the assumptions of both parametric and non-parametric statistics and why each category is advantageous for different types of data. A description of how each category of statistics uses a different approach to test a similar construct of probability will be provided. In addition, differences in output including statistical power will be explained.

Chapter four will introduce the learner to various statistical models used for studies of differences. The module will include models of parametric versus non-parametric examples for between groups as well as within group differences. The learner will also be introduced to more complex two-way designs where between groups and within groups or covariates are included.

Chapter five will cover key characteristics for studies of association and what statistics would be most appropriate for creating a model.

Chapter six will describe and value other statistical procedures used in biostatistics used to answer questions regarding concepts such as number needed to treat, survival analysis, factorial designs and more

Chapter eight will summarize the content contained in the statistics for rehabilitation research course and provide additional resources the learner can procure to garner further training.

Chapter one introduces the learner to the reasons critical appraisal is so necessary. Within the learning context, studies and research are discussed that through careful critical appraisal, the clinical transferability of the findings have been limited.

Chapter two discusses the different levels of journal hierarchy and the mechanisms—such as impact factor, eigenvalue, H index and altmetrics—that are used to evaluate these. Critical appraisal is evaluated from the journal’s point of view.

Chapter three discusses the normal flow of the peer review process. Oversight groups, responsibility for quality peer review training and suggestions are also discussed.

Chapter four introduces the predatory publisher. A predatory publisher is a journal publishing company that erodes the sanctity of the peer review system in order to make revenue. The work published in these journals is questionable. The module discusses the growing number of these and how to identify each.

Chapter five is designed to introduce the learner to critiquing guidelines and mechanisms of training. The learner is introduced to agencies responsible for creating reporting guidelines and the ethics behind peer reviewing.

Chapter six discusses what to look for in a risk of bias tool and how to use reporting guidelines in the review process. Further, risk of bias and quality are compared and contrasted.

Chapter seven is titled Journal Clubs and is designed to describe the best methods for performing these. Ideas such as scoring each article on a utility scale are discussed, as are best mechanisms for location, topics, and time.

The summary chapter discusses the salient points of the course and provides recommended readings to the learners to enhance the materials within the modules.

Chapter one discusses the likelihood that the majority of research published is actually incorrect. The module discusses unintentional and intentional errors, the ethical challenges facing most researchers, and introduces the four parameters of incorrect research: 1) fraudulent, 2) not fraudulent but erroneous, 3) markedly outside a normative finding (outlier) or 4) inappropriately translated into a care process, beyond what it was intended.

Chapter two discusses several of most high profile fraudulent research activities that have occurred in the last century. This module also discusses the behaviors of fraudulent researchers and the responses associated with journals who originally published the fraudulent work.

Chapter three provides examples of early research participant abuse (willing and unwilling participants) and the consequential internationally driven actions among researchers to assure appropriately behaviors and ethics. The modules discusses human ethics review boards and institutional review boards as well as publications guidelines’ groups that have been created to evaluate ethics in research.

Chapter five is designed to educate the reader to recognize two forms of outliers in research: 1) legitimate outliers when the results are true but can skew findings, and 2) illegitimate outliers that suggest the findings are too good to be true and are notably different from what other researchers find. This module discusses methods to manage outliers and provides a number of examples of legitimate outlier findings in and outside healthcare.

Chapter six deals with the translation of information gathered during the reading of a research study to clinical practice. This module discusses the appropriate translation parameters based on study design, trial phase, researcher influence and statistics.

Chapter seven is titled Effect Sizes and Conservative Estimates and is designed to provide the learner with a standardized measure to better evaluate the realistic impact of an intervention found in a particular study. Different forms of effect sizes (the magnitude of an intervention) are discussed as are the typical effect sizes for most rehabilitation-based interventions.

The summary chapter discusses the salient points of the course and provides recommended readings to the learners to enhance the materials within the modules.

Chapter one introduces the participant to the world of outcomes measures and to the myriad of resources available to find outcome measures used. This module will explain the advantages of using standardized outcome measures and how they can benefit both patients and clinicians.

Chapter two will discuss the many dimensions of recovery. The concept of recovery will be broken down into various constructs explored and the elusive nature of explanation, testing, and measurement will be explained. This module will address the need for the clinician to identify the most important dimensions of recovery as they pertain to the individual and how this may be variable depending on environmental and personal factors contextually specific to the patient.

Chapter three will describe and discuss the attributes of outcome measures and how to determine the reliability and validity of outcomes measures. This module will discuss responsiveness, meaningful change and how to assess if a specific outcome measure is effective in representing a construct of interest. This is important in assisting the clinician in evaluating the quality of specific outcomes measures for a given construct in a given patient population.

Chapter four will describe and discuss the COSMIN initiative for evaluating the quality of outcomes instruments. The historical perspective leading up to the creation will be provided as well as how it can be used to assess the quality of each outcome tool used clinically. The purpose of covering this material lies in the need to separate the best outcome tools from those that don’t provide enough value in the clinical environment as well as to emphasize the importance of pursuing evidence for generalizability of outcome tools to differing populations of patients.

Chapter five will discuss some of the pros and cons to using SRMs and PPMs and will cover how to choose the right outcomes measures. Some specific examples of outcomes measures will be covered.

Chapter six will summarize the handful of key points from the previous 6 modules. It is important to emphasize and reinforce the key points to ensure learning the essentials of grant application and management.

Chapter one outlines the cost of executing a large scale research trial and how finding research funding can be used to offset those costs allowing the researcher to have available resources to complete a study in a timely manner. It will also cover the additional benefits of how following funding regulations will enhance your organizational skills and structure in accomplishing research.

Chapter two introduces the learner to the foundations of organizing a research team with the intent on developing a fundable idea that can be presented in an internal or external grant application. The foundation of a research team allows many individuals to put together ideas and resources needed to produce a strong application of diverse ideas.

Chapter three introduces the participant to the multifaceted world of funding opportunities. Even though some funding options may be shrinking, there are still billions of dollars available, much of which is never dispersed. Some investigators don’t even realize all the opportunities that may actually apply to the ideas they have. This module will encourage the investigator to explore options for funding they never thought were possible and will provide some ideas of how to continually use their search engines to keep them informed when opportunities come available.

Chapter four will discuss the many components of a typical grant application and will identify and describe writing strategies to produce a competitive application. This module will cover some “do’s and don’ts” of writing and will cover some style issues related to the writing process.

Chapter five will cover the basics of budget development and will cover many concepts and regulations that may not be intuitive to the process. This module will discuss subjects such as direct and indirects and the importance of taking the institution managing the grants needs into consideration when developing a budget. The cost of labor (salary and benefits), supplies and laboratory costs will also be discussed.

Chapter six will discuss many, but not all rules and regulations that govern post award management of the grant won. This module will provide information regarding the complexity of compliance and how systems need to be in place to manage processes to ensure compliance with all regulatory guidelines. This module will also discuss the need to identify current institutional resources available for use in your project. The resources may need to be leveraged or used as in-kind resources as a requirement of the grant application.

Chapter seven will summarize the handful of key points from the previous 6 modules. It is important to emphasize and reinforce the key points to ensure learning the essentials of grant application and management.

Chapter one introduces the learner to the concept of TRIP. This module will explain the difficulty in incorporating new research into textbooks and clinical practice. In additional data explaining the difficulty in getting clinical practice guidelines adopted by mainstream clinicians and the negative impact this has on patient outcomes is presented.

Chapter two builds on the concept of slow adoption of TRIP by defining many of the barriers to research adoption. This module will cover barriers at the individual, patient, clinical and organizational levels.

Chapter three will cover a number of strategies that individual clinicians can employ to enhance their personal adoption of new research or CPGs into clinical practice.

Chapter four will discuss the strategies that organizations, be it clinical systems or larger healthcare organizations, can use to enhance research and CPG adoption system wide. We will cover how TRIP can be added into a total quality improvement initiative with methods for incentivizing rapid adoption.

Chapter five will outline the researchers’ role in encouraging research adoption by the types of studies they engage in and the way the results are presented in both conference proceedings and in manuscript preparation. In addition, research design characteristics will also be discussed that makes research seem more like how clinicians practice.

Chapter six will present several resources that the clinician or organization can use to assist in identifying TRIP strategies and how to implement research.

Chapter seven will present summarize the content of this course and will provide additional reading resources for the participant to consider using moving forward in their personal or organizational strategies to enhance adherence to CPGs and adoption of new research.

Chapter one discusses the publishing of a case report/study and some of the challenges associated with this. The module discusses the advantages to publishing and how this might be advantageous to a clinician’s career.

Chapter two discusses the different forms of single subject studies, including case reports, case studies and case series. The nuances of each are described as well as a discussion of how to best represent each.

Chapter three provides the recommendation of how to write a case study/report; with particular emphasis on the CARE guidelines and the Equator Network. This model provides a step-by-step process for what to write, what to emphasize, and how to report the information.

Chapter four provides tips from the literature and from an experienced editorial board member on the focus material of how to get published. The module discusses the best journals that accept case reports, grey literature and predatory journals.

Chapter five re-introduces the learner to the CARE guidelines and introduces the reader to other checklists and recommendations for publishing case reports/studies from other publishing groups.

Chapter six is likely the most useful and impactful module in the course. This module discusses the pros and cons of case studies/reports and what the author can and cannot suggest in a publication.

Chapter seven provides take away points, suggested readings, and salient aspects of the course. This chapter does not focus on a specific objective but introduces the learner to additional material that may be useful in understanding the material.