TEACHING AND STUDYING RESEARCH UTILIZATION
ULCHS aims to train health scientists who will continuously utilize research to advance their work through lifelong self-directed learning. To enhance teaching and learning across the college, CTLI is defining the competencies that enable research utilization at the level of the individual and creating mechanisms for ensuring that faculty and students have the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to effectively use evidence in the health sciences.
Teaching Methodologies
Research utilization competencies include: identifying the need for evidence, finding evidence in response to that need, evaluating the quality of evidence, and communicating evidence to diverse audiences. For each of the defined competencies, CTLI is creating learning objectives, instructional activities, and assessments. Faculty members and instructors will be trained so that they are well equipped to incorporate research utilization training into their courses.
Studying Research Utilization
CTLI is developing a research agenda driven by ULCHS priorities to generate new knowledge on how best to translate research into impact for development.
CTLI faculty are conducting a global literature review to survey the best practices for teaching research utilization to health sciences students and will conduct a process evaluation of the integration of research utilization competencies into the ULCHS curricula.
Integrated into ULCHS Curricula
Rather than creating stand-alone training programs, CTLI is mapping the research utilization competencies, learning objectives, and teaching and assessment strategies onto the existing curricula of the schools within ULCHS. With this approach, every ULCHS student will graduate with the skills required to find, analyze and communicate evidence in their chosen professional field – whether as a clinician, researcher, policymaker, faculty member, or all of the above.
The ULCHS CTLI is a national public-private-academic hub for research utilization education, training, and collaboration throughout Liberia’s health sector. CTLI provides a long-term institutional home for sustaining programs developed through BRIDGE-U: Applying Research for a Healthy Liberia (BRIDGE-U Liberia) and other funded projects. CTLI also provides a place for faculty, students, policymakers, clinicians, entrepreneurs, and others to gather for project activities and trainings as well as networking and collaboration.
