SME0153 - RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT

This integrated course aims to provide students with both foundational and advanced methodological competencies necessary for understanding the scientific literature and for carrying out an experimental thesis project, along with the regulatory, organizational, and ethical foundations of healthcare professions practice. Specifically, the individual modules integrate their competencies and objectives - also in terms of timing across the academic year - as follows:

The Medical Statistics module (first semester) introduces students to the fundamentals of descriptive statistical analysis for summarizing results and inferential analysis for testing clinical hypotheses.
The Statistics and Research Methodology module (second semester) provides an in-depth exploration of clinical study design.
The Applied Research Computing module (second semester), held in the computer lab, introduces students to the software tools needed to perform basic statistical analyses, both descriptive and inferential.
The Healthcare Professions Management module provides the regulatory, organizational, and ethical framework for professional practice in the rehabilitation field.

Expected Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the course, students will be able to:

Explain the fundamental concepts of descriptive statistics and describe the process of statistical inference, including hypothesis formulation, data collection and analysis, and hypothesis testing.
Apply descriptive statistical methods to summarize and visualize data relevant to the biomedical/physiotherapy field, and perform basic inferential statistical analyses to draw conclusions from empirical data.
Critically appraise scientific articles, with particular emphasis on the interpretation of statistical results.
Organize, collect, and clean data using Excel in preparation for statistical analysis, and apply the descriptive statistics functions of statistical software to calculate frequency distributions, measures of central tendency and dispersion, and to analyze correlations between variables.
Use statistical software to perform parametric and non-parametric statistical tests, including tests for comparing distributions of continuous or discrete data, both paired and independent.
Formulate relevant research questions, design appropriate studies, and critically interpret results.
Identify the most suitable research design for a given research question.
Identify the current legislation governing the practice of physiotherapy and healthcare professions in general.
Outline the concept of healthcare organization and the areas of intervention for rehabilitation healthcare professionals.
Define the aspects of professional authority, responsibility, and ethics.
Understand the tools for implementing clinical governance, particularly risk management and its impact on daily practice.
Describe the departmental model currently adopted in healthcare organizations.
Define the concept of delegation versus assignment.