Knowledge-based 

Level 6

Congratulations and welcome!

📕 UNIT 1: Taking your career a step further

POLL: How confident are you at finding trustworthy answers?

📘UNIT 2: Skills Lab™: What's your goal?

Please complete Your Personal Strategy Questionnaire

🎙️Off The Page Podcast

Module quiz

0. Fundamentals

Module 1 Learning Outcomes

POLL: What is your starting point for a nutrition question?

📕UNIT 1: Introduction to research techniques

POLL: How proactive are you in searching for nutrition information?

POLL: Do you already have a research idea in mind?

📘 UNIT 2: Skills Lab™: What's your scientific question?

Downloadable Client Materials and Session Handouts

Module feedback

Before you take your quiz

1. Research aims

Module 2 Learning Outcomes

POLL: How do you like to shape a new idea?

📕UNIT 1: Understanding keywords and search terms

📘 UNIT 2: Skills Lab™: Identifying my search terms 

2. Knowing the search terms

Module 3 Learning Outcomes

📕 UNIT 1: Where do I conduct my search?

POLL: How familiar are you with using PubMed?

📕 UNIT 2: Researching with PubMed

▶️ Tutorial: Searching in Pubmed

▶️ Watch and Learn: Tutorials for using PubMed

POLL: Have you explored ScienceDirect as a research source?

📕 UNIT 3: Searching with ScienceDirect

POLL: Is Google Scholar part of your search process?

📕 UNIT 4:  Investigating with Google Scholar

▶️ Tutorial: Investigating with Google Scholar

POLL: What did your first PubMed search uncover?

📘 UNIT 5: Skills Lab™: Conducting a search

3. Which sources do I use

Module 4 Learning Outcomes

POLL: What makes a research search feel manageable?

📕 UNIT 1: Refining search results

▶️ Tutorial: Refining search results in PubMed

📘 UNIT 2: Skills Lab™: Narrowing down results

POLL: How much did refining your search improve the results?

4. Too many or too few papers

Module 5 Learning Outcomes

POLL: Where can you go when you need full journal access?

📕 UNIT 1: Accessing the full texts for free

▶️ Tutorial: Assessing free full texts in PubMed

📘 UNIT 2: Skills Lab™: How to access free papers 

POLL: What did your free full-text search turn up?

5. Researching on a budget

Module 6 Learning Outcomes

POLL: What is your experience with reading scientific papers?

📕 UNIT 1: Why read a scientific paper

📕 UNIT 2: What does the abstract and introduction teach us?

📕 UNIT 3: Why know the experimental set up?

POLL: What can epidemiology really prove?

📕 UNIT 4: Examining epidemiological evidence

POLL: Have you seen correlation presented as causation?

📕 UNIT 5: Seeing the data with an unbiased eye

POLL: How did reading research compare with your expectations?

▶️ Tutorial: Reading a scientific paper

6. Reading a paper

Module 7 Learning Outcomes

POLL: How would you rate your critical research skills?

📕 UNIT 1: Critiquing scientific papers

POLL: How easily can you navigate unfamiliar scientific language?

📕 UNIT 2: Taking a critical eye to the study design

📕 UNIT 3:  Going direct to the results

📕 UNIT 4: Analysing the analysis

📘 UNIT 5: Skills Lab™: Critiquing a paper

POLL: Where do your critical reading skills stand now?

7. Critiquing papers

Module 8 Learning Outcomes

POLL: How often do you look for hidden influences behind online content?

📕 UNIT 1: Avoiding confirmation bias

POLL: How confident are you at spotting bias?

8. Could the research be biased

Module 9 Learning Outcomes

POLL: Do numbers make you trust, question, or dig deeper?

📕 UNIT 1: Looking beyond the numbers

Module Quiz

9. Correlation and Causation

Module 10 Learning Outcomes

POLL: Do you stop and fact-check health stories when something feels off?

📕 UNIT 1: Debunking the Headlines

POLL: Share where you think health misinformation usually begins

📕 UNIT 2: Cutting through the misinformation

POLL: How often does the news leave you unsure what to trust?

✍  UNIT 3:  Skills Lab™: Analysing a news article

Downloadable Client Materials and Session Handouts 

10. The science behind headlines

Module 11 Learning Outcomes

POLL: Have you ever used Wikipedia before to look up a nutrition or health-related question you may have?

📕 UNIT 1: The good and bad of Wikipedia

📘 UNIT 2: Skills Lab™: Auditing Wikipedia pages

11. BONUS Wikipedia

Module 12 Learning Outcomes

📕 UNIT 1: Dos, dont’s, and must dos

12. Dos and Donts

Before you take your Final Exam

Final Exam

13. Final Exam

Certification Register Form

Accessing Your Certificate

14. Final Steps

<p>This 33-unit certification will help you to look to the scientific literature to answer both your own nutrition questions and those from clients. This certification will take you step by step from having your own research question, identifying your search terms and knowing which scientific search engine to go to, to reading and critiquing scientific papers. Plus, we’ll also be examining how to spot when nutrition news headlines and articles may be stretching the truth, and when Wikipedia can be a good tool (and when to leave it to the side).</p>

Advanced Research Techniques™

Maurice Castelijn

What you will learn

Appreciate the use of literature reviews, when they are appropriate, and how to develop a research question

Conduct database searches to identify and collect all the relevant scientific studies

Read scientific papers with an understanding of their structure

Distinguish the different types of scientific papers, including the design and methodology of a scientific study

Evaluate the utility of different forms of scientific evidence, and critique the validity and generalisability of the data

Develop awareness of the limitations and idiosyncrasies present in scientific papers

Conduct thorough literature reviews with the aim to answer scientific questions

Recognise and counter false arguments in deliberately misleading media content

Uncover the common mistakes and limitations of journalism in reporting science, and understand their origins

Course content

Course Description

This Course Includes