How To Do Primary Care Educational Research: A Practical Guide

Primary care is a rapidly growing academic branch of learning and developing its own body of research is the hallmark of a maturing academic discipline. This practical guide is the first designed specifically to support those planning, conducting and disseminating primary care educational research. While research informs clinical practice, organisation of primary care services and teaching the discipline, educational practices and modes of delivery are rapidly changing, particularly in response to new information technologies. Primary care practitioners must be engaged in life-long learning and keep abreast of developments in many arenas and educational research into how to address this has thus become of paramount importance. Key Features: The first ‘how-to’ guide to designing, conducting and disseminating primary care educational research Focus on inter-professional education, co-design and participatory research approaches, in line with current primary care models of care involving inter-disciplinary teams Wide in scope, exploring the current research environment in the contexts of undergraduate teaching, postgraduate training, continuing professional development, and patient education, for academics and educationalists at all levels Step-by-step introduction to the processes of literature review (establishing the existing knowledge base), choosing a topic, research questions and methodology, conducting research and disseminating results Supported by the WONCA Working Parties on Research and Education This book will encourage and upskill academics at universities and institutions teaching primary care in both undergraduate and postgraduate settings, providing support and guidance on how to conduct their own research and evaluate their own programmes, and will help to grow academic research in this discipline in high and, importantly, also low- and middle-income countries.