Critical appraisal is the process of carefully and systematically assessing the outcome of scientific research (evidence) to judge its trustworthiness, value and relevance in a particular context. The critical appraisal looks at the way a study is conducted and examines factors such as internal validity, generalisability and relevance.
Critical appraisal is an essential step in the process of evidence-based practice. Acquiring critical appraisal skills, and adopting them into your everyday practice will enable you to make informed, evidence-based decisions.
List of The Best Critical Appraisal Skills Online Course
1. Critical Appraisal Techniques for Healthcare Literature
In this course, you will learn critical appraisal techniques to evaluate the quality of healthcare research literature. You will evaluate published papers, interrogate their methodologies, identify strengths and weaknesses and produce a balanced appraisal of papers to discuss with colleagues, patients, and academic bodies. You’ll assess the contributions of published papers to their research fields, and identify where there’s a need for further research.
Course Highlights:
- Principles of critical appraisal
- Techniques and Models for critiquing healthcare research papers
- Relevant research designs and analysis methods, both quantitative and qualitative
- Papers discussed and appraised will cover a broad range of health areas
Course Duration: 3 weeks
2. Critical Appraisal- UCL
Being able to critically appraise published research is a key skill for anyone involved in using and/or undertaking research. In this course, you will discuss the importance of defining a meaningful research question and the key research factors implicated in answering a research question in an efficient and valid way. You will cover each section in a paper in turn. There is a lot of emphasis on evaluating the collection and analysis of data as described by the authors. Widely available critical appraisal sheets are discussed.
Course Highlights:
- Describe the study design, and understand the advantages and disadvantages of the researcher’s approach
- Notice when bias could be introduced through the sampling process and other aspects of the study design
- Consider whether the authors have used appropriate statistical methods
- Assess the validity of the results and conclusions
- Use checklists for critical appraisal that are available online
Course Duration: 6 hours
3. Critically Appraising The Evidence Base
The critical appraisal programme has been designed to enable the healthcare workforce (clinical and non-clinical) to build confidence in the critical appraisal process when applying and evaluating research.As the next step to research review, critical appraisal is the process of assessing the reliability, importance, and applicability of evidence. It can be applied to a range of written work such as formal research projects, studies and professional development to check validity and determine value. This programme aims to support NHS colleagues with understanding the different methods and tools to carry out critical appraisal of research, through 8 bite-sized modules.
Course Highlights:
- Describe the following terms; critical appraisal, bias, internal validity and external validity
- Distinguish between different types of study designs and their strengths and limitations
- Assess the appropriateness of methods used to conduct a randomised controlled trial, systematic review, diagnostic study and qualitative study
- Interpret commonly reported results found in clinical papers
- Identify different types of critical appraisal tools and their strengths and limitations
Course Duration: Self Paced
4. Medicine: Critical Appraisal for NHS Staff (for NHS staff only)
This course will help you understand how to critically evaluate medical research articles, with a particular emphasis on evaluating the reliability, trustworthiness, and applicability of an article in informing evidence-based practice and decision-making in a healthcare context.
Course Highlights:
Course Duration: 1 hour of one session
5. Critical appraisal of Systematic Reviews (Virtual workshop)
This course will build upon the foundation course MEDI1042 and will emphasise how medical students, as future practitioners, can incorporate an evidence-based approach in their clinical practice. The course will focus on developing the skills medical professionals require to make clinical decisions about the relevance, validity and trustworthiness of the published literature. Students will be guided though all stages of the course using formative learning activities. The first summative assignment will focus on the critical appraisal of published clinical evidence. Students will be required to undertake a review of current research using a published critical appraisal checklist. This will be assessed using a MCQ assessment. In the final assessment students will be presented with a number of different questions and/or clinical case studies and be required to assess the information or analyse the data presented. This will be assessed using a MCQ assessment.
Course Highlights:
- Students will be re-introduced to clinical research methods,
- Understand the way these studies are analysed and how evidence is reported in the medical literature
- Develop the ability to critically review existing evidence about effects of interventions and evidence about diagnosis
- Prognosis and ultimately make clinical decisions based upon that evidence
Course Duration: 1 semester
6. Developing Critical Appraisal Skills
As health and social care evolves, professionals are expected to look for innovative ways of improving their practice. This module will give you the confidence to explore different approaches to research with a critical perspective, and apply it to your professional practice. You will develop knowledge and critical understanding of the research process; explore different types of evidence; and understand the implications for evidence based practice (EBP) through use of a range of theoretical and practical critical appraisal skills.
You’ll learn to make informed decisions using evidence from research, which will give you confidence that you are capable of evidence-based decision making that you can use to underpin your professional practice
Course Highlights:
- Have knowledge and critical understanding of the research process and research methods (quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods) and appreciate the implications for informing practice as part of evidence-based practice (EBP)
- Have undertaken a systematic search to identify appropriate evidence to answer a practice-based question
- Be able to select appropriate critical appraisal tools and apply these to identify strengths/weaknesses to the way evidence has been generated -including research ethics
- Make informed judgements about the implications of different types of evidence for clinical decision making as part of EBP.
Course Duration: Self Paced
7. Critical Appraisal Skills
This module has been designed to enable the students to undertake an in-depth critical appraisal of research methods currently used in healthcare research. In order to critically appraise and assess suitability of research for application in practice. To this end, research methods such as interviews, focus groups, Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) and other epidemiological methods will be presented and the pros and cons explored.
This module will also address: literature searching in order to identify appropriate literature; ethical principles surrounding research; methods of analysing and interpreting data; and will explore evidence-based practice issues surrounding the application of research into practice.
Course Highlights:
- The process of critically appraising these qualitative and quantitative research methods using appropriate published checklists will be explored
- Develop an understanding of methods commonly used in healthcare research
Course Duration: 10 weeks
8. MEDIC ST 3104AOL – Research and Critical Appraisal Part 1
This full-year online course involves lectures, workshops, and small group tutorials to provide broad competency in clinical and basic research theory and practice as the essential foundation for current medical knowledge and continuing advances.
Course Highlights:
- To understand the role of research to inform excellence in clinical practice
- Learn the principles, practices and processes of scientific enquiry
- Plan a small research project involving experimental design or qualitative research methodologies where relevant.
- Assess the strengths and weaknesses of a published paper, and its relevance to clinical pratice or medical science.
- Learn how to keep up-to-date with research.
- Carry out independent learning and work effectively
Course Duration: 1 year
9. Teaching Critical Appraisal: Developing Skills for Critical Appraisal Training
The main purpose of the online “teaching critical appraisal” course is to help participants develop the competence and confidence needed to run a ‘CASP-style’ Critical Appraisal workshop.
Course Highlights:
- To increase confidence in appraising evidence of effectiveness through an improved understanding of key concepts and terminology used in published biomedical and social sciences research
- To experience typical CASP workshops and appraise published papers covering two of the main study types – randomised controlled trial and systematic review – using structured checklists
- To practice calculating measures of risk using data from published research
- To practice teaching skills in a safe environment
- To practice small group facilitation
- To practice presenting key elements of critical appraisal skills training
- To share experiences and observe different ways of taking feedback by watching others
Course Duration: Self Paced
10. Modern Leadership Styles: What Makes a Good Leader in Healthcare Management
On this course, you’ll learn how good leaders and managers operate in a global context. You’ll have the opportunity to examine the role of leadership framed through healthcare in the 21st century, exploring the fundamental challenges that leaders face internationally.
Critical analysis is key to becoming a better leader. This course will show you how to analyse different management theories and effective leadership styles in healthcare.
Course Highlights:
- Understand leadership and management in a global healthcare context
- Critically appraise leadership and management theories for the 21st Century Healthcare Leader
- Identify personal areas for development to be a modern healthcare leader
- Explore the challenges facing global Healthcare Leaders and managers today
- Devise and sustain arguments for the necessary characteristics and strategies of a modern healthcare leader
Course Duration: 2 weeks (5 hours/week)
11. Master your Decision-Making, And Critical Thinking Skills !
This Course will help you improve the Quality, and ROI (Return on Investment), of all your Big decisions. Decision-making, Critical Thinking, and Problem Solving are Leadership and Management skills, that are crucial for pretty much everyone !! However, even the smartest Leaders and Managers, in the best of organisations, often make wrong, and irrational decisions !
And wrong decisions can be costly, not just for yourself, but for your colleagues, team, and organisation. They can result in both financial, and non-financial, losses. But you can change that ! Learn how critical insights from research, and advances, in Psychology, Cognitive, Behavioral science, and Behavioral Economics, can help you make better, and more rational, decisions, as well as analyse and solve problems better.
Course Highlights:
- Improve the Quality of all your big decisions, thereby improving their ROI (Return on Investment) significantly
- Know about your thinking processes, and how they work in your thinking and decision-making
- Understand Cognitive Biases and Logical Fallacies, and how they affect your judgements and decisions
- Learn how to minimise the effects of these Biases and Fallacies, with De-Biasing techniques and strategies
Course Duration: 4.5 hours
