Medical learners are critical stakeholders in medical education research -they are both research participants and end-users of research findings. Traditional forms of disseminating research findings may take years to produce and may never be accessed by participants. Despite this, medical education researchers are responsible for ensuring that research findings reach medical learners faster and more directly. As such, Research Briefs can be a useful vehicle for communicating research findings, rewarding participation in research, and supporting medical learners in their journey to become doctors.We provide examples of Research Briefs that we have developed to translate knowledge and engage medical learners in our longitudinal research study. We have used Research Briefs to communicate our findings both to participating students and to the larger student community at our university. Doing so has allowed us to start raising awareness of the roles motivation and coping -specifically, achievement goals, self-compassion, and physical activity -play in the learning and well-being of our students.
Keywords: knowledge translation, communication, motivation, coping
Research BriefsGlobally, significant resources and time are invested in the creation of knowledge in health sciences research, including healthcare professional training. [1][2][3][4][5] Despite this, one of the most consistent findings is the failure to translate research into practice and give back to research participants directly. [1][2][3][4][5] In professional education, including medical education, traditional channels and forms of research dissemination (i.e., scientific meetings and peer-reviewed publications) may not necessarily be directly accessible to research participants. We, medical education researchers, are in the position to rectify the situation and ensure that research findings reach our learners in a timely and engaging fashion. In this article, we provide examples of Research Briefs that we have developed for the purpose of knowledge translation and giving back to our participants.The Research Brief is an evidence-based resource and knowledge translation tool used to communicate research findings directly to groups of people who may not have time, technical knowledge, or access to traditional academic forms of research dissemination (e.g., journal articles, full reports). As such, the Research Brief is a summary of research findings from one or multiple studies on a currently important topic, with a clear take-home message. The Research Brief is not a mini research report or a poster, as it does not include a methodology or sophisticated statistical analyses. It is typically one page long and focuses on providing participants with research results that they may find interesting or relevant. Although there is no "correct" way to design a Research Brief, we recommend minimizing text, usually in the form of bullets or short sentences, and creating graphical elements (e.g., figures, tables, images). Because of this structure, Researc...