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In the era of evidence-based health and social care it is vital to be able to evaluate the research evidence that underpins existing practice and the emerging information that shapes service change. On this module, you will learn to critically explore research evidence in occupational therapy practice and to synthesise, integrate and apply knowledge of the research process to this. In this module, we will use real-life examples
from local, national and international researchers to develop your knowledge and skills to be able to find and interpret gaps in the existing body of evidence and to ask
appropriate and relevant research questions with an aim of filling these. The work done in this module will develop the subsequent dissertation that you undertake in year-2 of the course. By promoting evidence-based research this module will encourage working
to high professional standards, providing shared governance and accountability of
health and social care practice. The module will include the following content: 1. An
overview of the research process. 2. Critical appraisal of the research evidence to
assist in the development of research ideas relevant to practice. 3. Evaluation of
research designs including quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods approaches. 4.
Exploration in the importance of research governance and ethics.

Upon completion of this module, you will be able to:
LO1: Critically evaluate the evidence base relating to a topic that is relevant to
occupational therapy.
LO2: Critically engage with the literature to identify a knowledge gap related to a topic, which is relevant to occupational therapy.
LO3: Develop a research question linked to the identified gaps in the literature.
LO4: Critically discuss and justify the merits of different methodologies, methods and forms of analysis to establish a coherent study design that will answer the research
question.
LO5: Critically assess ethical issues associated with answering a research question