Research Briefs as Communication and Motivation Tools: Knowledge Translation in Medical Education

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. 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.