BackgroundIn the past decades, various frameworks, methods, indicators, and tools have been developed to assess the needs as well as to monitor and evaluate (needs assessment, monitoring and evaluation; “NaME”) health research capacity development (HRCD) activities. This systematic review gives an overview on NaME activities at the individual and organizational level in the past 10 years with a specific focus on methods, tools and instruments. Insight from this review might support researchers and stakeholders in systemizing future efforts in the HRCD field.MethodsA systematic literature search was conducted in PubMed and Google Scholar. Additionally, the personal bibliographies of the authors were scanned. Two researchers independently reviewed the identified abstracts for inclusion according to previously defined eligibility criteria. The included articles were analysed with a focus on both different HRCD activities as well as NaME efforts.ResultsInitially, the search revealed 700 records in PubMed, two additional records in Google Scholar, and 10 abstracts from the personal bibliographies of the authors. Finally, 42 studies were included and analysed in depth. Findings show that the NaME efforts in the field of HRCD are as complex and manifold as the concept of HRCD itself. NaME is predominately focused on outcome evaluation and mainly refers to the individual and team levels.ConclusionA substantial need for a coherent and transparent taxonomy of HRCD activities to maximize the benefits of future studies in the field was identified. A coherent overview of the tools used to monitor and evaluate HRCD activities is provided to inform further research in the field.
Research competence (RC) as a key ability of students in the social sciences has thus far been conceptualized as consisting primarily of cognitive dispositions. However, owing to its highly complex and demanding nature, competence in conducting research might require additional affective and motivational dispositions. To address this deficiency in the literature, first, we conducted a qualitative interview study with academic experts (N = 16) in which we asked them to identify challenging research situations and the affective-motivational research dispositions needed to cope with them. We employed a subsequent online rating (N = 27) to evaluate the situations and dispositions that had been identified. The resulting affective-motivational facet of RC encompasses six challenging situations that are often encountered and nine dispositions that are necessary to successfully conduct research in the social sciences and may be used to both inform and evaluate research-based learning. The interview-based approach may serve as an exemplary procedure to postulate affective-motivational facets of competence models.
Research-based learning (RBL) is regarded as a panacea when it comes to effective instructional formats in higher education settings. It is said to improve a wide set of research-related skills and is a recommended learning experience for students. However, whether RBL in the social sciences is indeed as effective as has been postulated for other disciplines has not yet been systematically examined. We thus administered a pre-post-test study to N = 952 students enrolled in 70 RBL courses at 10 German universities and examined potential changes in cognitive and affective-motivational research dispositions. Latent change score modelling indicated that students increased their cognitive research dispositions, whereas most affective-motivational research dispositions decreased. The instructors' interest in the students' work served as a significant predictor of changes in research interest and joy. Practical implications for designing RBL environments can be inferred from the results.
One basic principle of inquiry-based learning that hitherto has received too little reflection is its potential to allow for a focus on competence goals rather than on discipline-or course-specific educational contents (e.g. disciplinary knowledge). Although a broad potential for fostering a wide array of competences is attributed to inquiry-based learning, this has yet to be systematically researched and demonstrated. This chapter outlines which competences can be fostered by inquiry-based learning and how these competences are to be understood. So far, the competence goals of inquiry-based learning have only been abstractly specified. This is insufficient for competence-oriented teaching, since it remains unclear which particular competences are to be fostered and how these may be actively promoted. Drawing on concepts and findings from current research projects, this chapter will operationalize these abstract competence goals and discuss ways to address these during higher education teaching.
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