This face to face course is run by the Researcher Academy as part of the Medicine and Health Sciences Faculty Training Programme.

The Researcher Academy courses are very popular and the majority are run in both semesters to give you the opportunity to attend at a time of the year that suits you. 

Target Audience: Postgraduate Research Students and Research Staff in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences only.

Course Description:

This two-day course will provide you with knowledge and skills to understand, appraise, and plan quantitative and qualitative systematic reviews in healthcare. You will learn about the key steps that are required in a systematic review and will how these may be applied to your own areas of interest. This includes how to frame a suitable research question, how to select an appropriate review approach for your question, and how to use online databases for literature searching. You will learn how to recognise good and poor systematic reviews through applying critical appraisal tools to examples of published systematic review, as well as explore the tools that can be used to report systematic reviews.

Systematic review is a method to systematically search, critically appraise and adequately synthesise evidence for a specific question of interest. This course will provide an introduction to systematic reviews of qualitative and quantitative research. For more in-depth training on reviews of qualitative evidence, you may wish to attend Approaches to Qualitative Evidence Synthesis. For more in-depth training on the analysis of quantitative reviews, you may wish to attend Meta-analysis. For further training on literature searching, you may wish to attend Literature Searching.

Aims: To give an overview of the techniques involve undertaking a quantitative systematic review. 

Learning Outcomes:

By the end of the masterclass, you will be able to:

Identify and recognise the accepted tools used within systematic reviews

• Develop a PICO based on a research question
• Understand the different methods and approaches used within systematic review processes
• Critically appraise existing systematic reviews using recognised assessment tools
• Practice the use of systematic review components in a classroom setting

Process: Series of interactive lectures (with real-life case scenarios) and discussions based on the following topics:

Day 1:

• What is a systematic review?
• Framing the research question
• Searching for studies
• Selecting studies

Day 2:

• Quantitative systematic reviews
• Qualitative systematic reviews
• Critical appraisal and reporting of systematic reviews

Course Accessibility

The following table shows a summary of what is needed to participate in the course. 

If you feel you will experience any difficulties participating, please let us know via the ‘special requirements’ tab, providing as much information as possible. The special requirements tab can be completed when you book your place. Alternatively, you can contact us directly at ra-training@nottingham.ac.uk.

Print off pre-requisite paperwork/ resources & bring them to the course (optional)
Bring your own laptop/ PC to the course (optional)
Access seminar room on campus
Attend the course at the specified date and time
Watch and listen to the course tutor(s) and/or other attendees
Follow presentation slides during the course

Booking Conditions

Latecomer policy

Researchers should plan to arrive prior to the advertised course start time. Except for exceptional reasons, there will be no admittance to a Researcher Academy or Faculty Training Programme (FTP) course 15 minutes after the advertised course start time.

Importance of booking commitment

When booking on to a Researcher Academy short course you are entering into a commitment to attend. If you find that you are no longer available to attend you MUST cancel your place (on the system if more than three days before the course) or if at short notice by emailing ra-training@nottingham.ac.uk. This will ensure that your place can be offered to another researcher on the waiting list. Failure to cancel a place results in other researchers missing out on places through the waiting list process.

It is unacceptable for researchers to just not attend when booked onto a course. The Researcher Academy maintains records of those who repeatedly do not attend courses they have booked. This may affect future eligibility to book onto further Researcher Academy courses and will affect considerations for Researcher Academy funded opportunities.

Pre-Requisites Pre-requisites: Basic understanding of quantitative and qualitative research