The MAHEC Research Certificate Program: A Brief and Introductory Exposure to Key Research Topics for Diverse Learners

Research is a core component of health profession training programs, but few efficient training resources exist that provide introductory research training that is brief, freely accessible, and supportive of learners with varying levels of research experience.

We set out to create the Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC) Research Certificate program to support Graduate Medical Education (GME) residents and other learners. We initially explored existing curricula used to instruct medical and doctor of pharmacy students in order to identify foundational research topics to include in our introductory research program. We were guided by stakeholders to create a curriculum for interdisciplinary learners that avoided costs to the user, kept learning sessions under 30 minutes, could be fully completed online, and could be incorporated into larger research courses. We created 8 modules by vetting freely available online resources or produced original content if existing resources were deemed inadequate. Additionally, we developed our evaluation processes.

The MAHEC Research Certificate Curriculum was implemented, and several GME programs, and other educational programs, incorporated the modules into their research curriculum. Preliminary results demonstrate that learner confidence on all 8 research topics improved after module completion. Overall, participants were highly satisfied with the curriculum and were likely to recommend the modules to peers.

This research curriculum fills a need for a free, brief, accessible, and asynchronous online research training program for learners. The curriculum can be used to supplement existing research didactic training in professional programs, to support researchers reviewing specific research topics, and/or to introduce research concepts to inexperienced researchers, all of whom can receive an automatically generated certificate of completion.