Educational Research Resources

This resource list was compiled by Carol Thrush and Elizabeth Hicks.

• Abstract Writing

• Effective Presentations

• Ethical Research and Policies

• Faculty Development

• Manuscript Writing

• Networking

• Statistics

• Teaching Portfolios

If a link is not provided to an article, you may access the full text of the article through the UAMS Library website, either through the Pubmed or the EbscoHost database.

Abstract Writing

Two articles emphasize the importance of a well-written abstract:

• The Need for Concrete Improvement in Abstract Quality, by Margaret A. Winker, M.D.

• A Scrutiny of the Abstract, by Kenneth K. Landes

 Teaching Portfolios

• A guide for what to include in your teaching, research, and/or service portfolio can be found here.

• Several resources for creating teaching portfolios can be found on this website.

• The Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology offers free articles about what a teaching portfolio is, what the portfolio should include, how to create an electronic teaching portfolio, and some sample portfolios.

Effective Presentations

• Ten tips for keeping your audience engaged during presentations

• How to build a presentation poster using PowerPoint

• Medical Educator publishes concise and helpful “Twelve Tips” articles about various subjects in medical education presentations:

  • “Twelve Tips for Effective PowerPoint Presentations for the Technologically Challenged,” By: J. Holzl. Medical Teacher, Sep97, Vol. 19 Issue 3, p175, 5p

  • “Twelve Tips for Making Case Presentations More Interesting,” By: Jennifer Craig; Lili Kopala. Medical Teacher, Jun95, Vol. 17 Issue 2, p161, 6p

  •  “Twelve Tips on Providing Handouts,” By: MacLean, Ilse. Medical Teacher, Mar91, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p7, 6p

Ethical Research and Policies

• Link to UAMS Institutional Review Board (IRB) website.  This website is a must for UAMS researchers to check out before engaging in research and/or scholarly activity. 

• Direct link to the UAMS Institutional Review Board Investigator’s Handbook, which assists researchers in preparing their IRB application.

• The UAMS HIPAA resources and information page details UAMS HIPAA privacy and research policies

• One-page handout on how to get an ARIA account and IRB certification

Faculty Development

• An article entitled “Faculty Development:  A Resource for Clinical Teachers” discusses the effectiveness of faculty development and teaching improvement initiatives for clinician educators.

• The Society of Teachers of Family Medicine provides a compilation of resources used by faculty developers, from teaching to mentoring to negotiation skills.  While targeted toward clinical faculty, some of these resources are also relevant to non-clinical faculty.

• A list of faculty development goals, developed by the APA Faculty Development Program, can be used as a personal career planning and self-evaluation guide.

• Information about a career in scholarly and professional publishing

• MedEd Portal offers teaching resources free online.  It also offers educational scholarship guides developed by the AAMC Working Group on Educational Scholarship to help faculty review, publish, and evaluate educational resources.

Manuscript Writing

• “Effective Medical Writing,” by Michelle Biros, Editor-in-Chief of Academic Emergency Medicine, gives a concise, easy-to-follow guideline for how to write, why manuscripts fail, and common errors made in manuscripts.

• The “Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals: Writing and Editing for Biomedical Publication” is a popular guide to writing articles for publication in biomedical journals.

• “Writing for Publication – A Guide for New Authors” helps new authors think through and plan their manuscript writing process, and offers helpful manuscript writing tips.

• “Reasons Reviewers Reject and Accept Manuscripts: The Strengths and Weaknesses in Medical Education Reports,” describes the results of a content analysis of reviewers’ comments on research manuscripts submitted to a conference, and details the top ten reasons for manuscripts to be rejected.

• “The art and science of writing manuscripts,” by RJ Arceci (Pediatr Blood Cancer. 2004 Sep;43(3):207-10) offers more good rules of thumb for manuscript writing.

•  “Reflections on Judging Manuscripts for Journal Publication,” by William C. McGaghie (Teaching & Learning in Medicine, 1999, Vol. 11 Issue 3B, p123), offers personal reflections on the reviewing and judging manuscripts submitted for publication. 

•  “Writing for Healthcare Publications:  A Partnership Between Service and Education,” (JS Lockhart. Nurse Educ. 2000 Jul-Aug;25(4):195-9) describes the positive outcomes of the implementation of an interdisciplinary graduate course on writing for healthcare publications.

• “Improving Faculty Publication Output:  The Role of a Writing Coach,” (Baldwin and Chandler. J Prof Nurs. 2002 Jan-Feb;18(1):8-15) discusses using an ongoing writing coach to empower faculty to increase their writing and publication activities.

• “A Physician Peer Support Writing Group,” (Grzybowski, Bates, Calam, Alred, Martin, Andrew, et al. Fam Med. 2003 Mar;35(3):195-201) describes the experience and outcomes of a physician peer support writing group, formed to overcome publication barriers, and offers detailed information of the formation and bonding of the group.

Networking

• “Mentoring Skills for Faculty,” by Debra Perina, offers tips for finding a mentor, and benefits of having a mentor.

• “Tips for Effective Networking” offers advice and networking resources.

Statistics

The following articles may be useful in reporting and calculating statistics in your research projects. 

• A suggested way of reporting effect size information when a variable has a significant effect but the effect is small

• “Typology of Analytical and Interpretational Errors in Quantitative and Qualitative Educational Research,” by Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie and Larry G. Daniel discusses major analytical and interpretational errors that occur regularly in quantitative and qualitative educational research.

• “Cronbach’s Alpha,” by J.M. Bland (BMJ. 1997 Feb 22;314) discusses Cronbach’s alpha, a useful coefficient for assessing internal consistency.

• “Guidelines for Statistical Reporting in Articles for Medical Journals,” by John C. Bailar (Ann Intern Med. 1988 Feb;108(2):266-73.)

• “A Visitor’s Guide to Effect Sizes,” by Mohammadreza Hojat and Gang Xu (Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract. 2004;9(3):241-9.)

• “Inference by Eye:  Confidence Intervals and How to Read Pictures of Data,” by Geoff Cumming and Sue Finch (Am Psychol. 2005 Feb-Mar;60(2):170-80.)

• “Statistical Power in Stuttering Research:  A Tutorial,” (Jones, Gebski, Onslow and Packman.  J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2002 Apr;45(2):243-55.) describes the statistical concept of power.

• “Twelve Tips for Using Statistics,” by Sean McAleer (Med Teach. 1990;12(2):127-30.) has advice for thinking about statistical issues at the beginning of a research project.

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