units

MFM5006

Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences

print version

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2016 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

Monash University

12 points, SCA Band 2, 0.250 EFTSL

Postgraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Faculty

Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences

Organisational Unit

Department of General Practice

Coordinator(s)

Associate Professor Peter Schattner

Offered

Clayton

  • First semester 2016 (Online)

Synopsis

This is a core unit for the MFM (research stream). Students are expected to explore the following areas: the history, scope and nature of general practice research; introduction to research methodology including study designs, qualitative versus quantitative research, the epidemiological basis of general practice research, descriptive, observational and experimental studies; how to getstarted in research; critical appraisal of journal articles, research ethics and research protocols; descriptive and inferential statistics; questionnaire construction and survey techniques, writing papers and giving presentations on research.

The unit is designed to take a logical path from framing a researchable question to developing a plan, implementing it, obtaining and then analysing results, and finally writing up the project. Introductory concepts of statistical analysis will be included, but students will not be expected to have a detailed working knowledge of this difficult subject area.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

  1. understand the nature and scope of research in general practice;
  2. understand and be able to implement the methods used in answering questions that arise out of general practice;
  3. critically appraise the medical literature;
  4. develop an enthusiasm for doing your own research;
  5. gain some practical experience in doing research projects.

Assessment

Students will be expected to complete 4 written assignments plus an MCQ.

Chief examiner(s)