Critical Analysis of Pathology Research

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2015:

30 contact hours with an estimated total time commitment of 170 hours (including non-contact time)

Students must be enrolled in the Bachelor of Biomedicine (Honours) or the Bachelor of Science (Honours) to complete this subject.

It is recommended that students have a Pathology major that includes PATH30004 Advanced Investigation of Human Disease as their elective.

None

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Equitable Adjustment Procedure (SEAP), academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Objectives, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry. It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability will impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and the Disability Liaison Unit: http://www.services.unimelb.edu.au/disability/

The Honours program in the Department of Pathology provides an introduction to the challenging area of investigation of disease processes at the cellular and molecular level. In this subject, advanced scientific lectures will be provided by experienced researchers discussing current scientific methods and their application to the study of pathological diseases. These lectures provide a foundation for critical analysis tasks which are consolidated during tutorials which assist students in reading and understanding scientific research articles. Students will be taught key learning objectives including, the application of scientific methods, how to write manuscript titles and abstracts, and in the art of critical analysis of scientific papers. The course is composed of 12 lectures and up to 8 tutorials. The lectures and tutorials are held during first semester.

The objectives of this course include –

• To ensure students develop competent skills in reading and understanding of scientific research articles.
• To acquire skills for the critical analysis of research articles.
• To appreciate the importance of constructing a title and composing an abstract that conveys the significance of the research problem.
• To be able to identify the purpose of a research article by determining the proposed hypothesis or aims.
• To appreciate the technical basis of the proposed research and determine whether the appropriate methods were used to address the aims.
• To appreciate the need for good experimental design, the appropriate use of controls and standards, the clear presentation of data in graphs, tables or images, validation of results through statistical testing and concise description of the experimental results.
• To generate awareness of how a discussion summarises the results relating to the hypothesis and reconciles the results with published literature.
• To become familiar with being able to extrapolate new research ideas from the published research.

• An oral presentation critically evalulating components of a research paper due in Semester 1 (20%)

• Students are required to perform critical analysis of a research article. This is an open book examination (4 hour duration) due in Semester 1 (80%)

None

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

The emphasis of this course is to introduce students to the importance of reading research articles effectively by learning critical analysis and evaluation skills.

This will enable students to:
• Be subjective when reading research articles.
• Appreciate the importance of presenting results in a format that demonstrates good scientific process.

Students interested in a Pathology specialisation must have a:

Pathology major

OR

PATH30001 and PATH30002 or PATH30001 and a SCIE30001project completed in the Department of Pathology in association with a major in another Biomedical discipline

OR

Students interested in honours in Pathology who do not have the above prerequisites but have practical experience in another biomedical science discipline should contact the Pathology Honours coordinator to discuss their eligiblity for honours in Pathology.