Three Day Systematic Review workshop 2011

Leuven, Belgium

6, 7, 8 June, 2011

Program

Contents Day 1 (9.00 am-4.15 pm):

9:00 Welcome and Overview, Introduction of Speakers

9:15 Introduction to Systematic Reviews

• Role and Purpose of Systematic Reviews
• Selecting a Review Topic
• Registering a Title and Conducting a Review Through Cochrane or Campbell

10:15 Break

10:30 Protocol Development

• Learn Information Retrieval Strategies
• Developing a Coding Form
• Quality Assessment Standards

12:00 Lunch Break/Walking Dinner

13:00 Protocol Development 2

• Data Extraction

13:30 Theory-based systematic reviews: integrating effectiveness reviews with causal chain analysis using logic
models

14.30 Break

14:45 Introduction to meta-analysis

• Basic Effect Size Calculations for Group Designed Studies, including RCT’s
• Synthesizing Effects Sizes for Group Designed Studies
• Combining studies with other designs

16:00 Adjourn

Contents Day 2 (9.00 am-4.00 pm):

9:00 Advanced topics in meta-analysis:

• Investigating and modeling heterogeneity
• Assessing and modeling publication bias

10:30 Break

10:45 Advanced topics in meta-analysis:

• Demonstration Comprehensive Meta-analysis (CMA) software
• Demonstration R (online and freely available)
• Outlier detection, assumptions checking, dealing with dependence, sensitivity and cumulative analyses.

12:00 Lunch Break/Walking Dinner

13.00 Reporting results of systematic reviews:

• The PRISMA statement
• Accounting for Process and Implementation aspects

13.45 Break

14.00 Workshop meta-analysis with R

16.00 Adjourn

Contents Day 3 (9.00 am-4.00 pm)

9:00 Introducing Qualitative Evidence synthesis (QES)

• Role and potential benefits of QES
• Overview of commonly used QES methods
• Recent developments

9.45 Searching for qualitative evidence and protocol development

• Sensitive or theoretical/purposeful
• Where does a qualitative protocol differ from a quantitative protocol?

10:30 Break

10.45 Quality Assessment of Qualitative Research

• Overview and Comparison of critical appraisal instruments

11:15 Workshop critical appraisal

12:00 Lunch Break/Walking Dinner

13:00 Workshop critical appraisal: results

13.30 Analyzing Qualitative Findings (the interpretive approach)

14.00 Introduction to software program QARI: the meta-aggregative approach (online and freely available)

16:00 Adjourn

In between the sessions, participants will have the opportunity to closely interact with instructors and other participants, and to receive feedback on individual projects, questions and ideas. Workshops are available.

The course will be conducted in English. Participants who follow the quantitative part (day 1 and 2) should have a basic background in statistical concepts and research design (e.g., 1 course in each). While particular experience in meta-analysis is helpful, it is not a prerequisite for participating in this course event. Participants who subscribe for day 3 are expected to have a basic knowledge of qualitative research designs and methods. They should be able to read and understand original research papers.

Instructors

Trudy Bekkering is an epidemiologist, Phd and staff member of the Belgian Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, Belgian Branch of the Cochrane Collaboration. She is a freelance reviewer and has extensive hands-on as well as teaching experience in the development of systematic reviews on a variety of topics. She currently runs a project for the Centre for Methodology of Educational Research on the adaptation of international practice guidelines (prevention, detection and treatment of drug and alcohol abuse in children and youngsters) to a local Belgian context.

Karin Hannes has a background in andragogics and medical-social sciences and is Doctor-Assistant, PhD at the Centre for Methodology of Educational Research in the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, where she teaches research methodology to undergraduates. Dr. Hannes has been teaching Evidence-Based Practice and Systematic Review courses in the public health and medical field for a decade and recently changed her focus to education. She is a founder of the Belgian Campbell Group, co-convener of the Cochrane Qualitative Research Group, co-author of the Cochrane Handbook for systematic reviews of effectiveness and co-chair of the Campbell Process and Implementation Methods Group. She specializes in qualitative evidence synthesis.

Angela Harden is a social scientist and Professor of Community and Family Health at the Institute of Health & Human Development at the University of East London in the UK. She is currently directing a research programme focused on improving outcomes for women and children in East London. Prior to her current appointment Angela was Associate Director of the EPPI-Centre and Senior Research Fellow at the University of London’s Institute of Education. At the EPPI-Centre she developed methods for integrating qualitative research alongside trials within systematic reviews and between 2005 and 2008 she co-directed the methods for research synthesis Node of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods. She continues to pursue her methodological research in collaboration with the EPPI-Centre and as a co-convenor of the Cochrane Qualitative Research Methods Group.

Wim Van den Noortgate is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. He teaches methodological and statistical courses at this faculty and at the Faculty of Sciences, including a course on meta-analysis. Major research interests and publications are in the field of multilevel analysis and meta-analysis. Besides meta-analyses in the behavioural sciences, published work includes methodological papers on the use of multilevel models for meta-analyses. He is one of the founders of the Belgian Campbell Group.

Hugh Waddington is the manager of 3ie's (international initiative for impact evaluation) London office which coordinates systematic review funding programmes and houses the new Campbell Collaboration International Development Coordinating Group. His interests are impact evaluation (IE) and systematic reviewing (SR) of international development interventions. He is a strong advocate of mixed-methods reviews to foster policy-relevance and advances the idea of using appropriate methods to attribute changes in outcomes to an intervention, drawing on wider range of evidence, including qualitative, in an attempt to explain why interventions are effective, or not. He has a strong focus on the development of programme theory or logic models. Previously he worked in the Planning Unit of the Government of Rwanda's Finance Ministry and at the World Bank.

Location

Department of Education, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Andreas Vesaliusstraat 2, 3000 Leuven (nearby the railway station), Belgium
Looking for a place to stay? Check www.leuven.be/en/tourism/staying-over/

Subscription

Registration Fee:

• € 300 for the three day program on June 6, 7, 8 (including lunches, coffee and tea).
• € 200 for the two day program on June 6, 7 (including lunches, coffee and tea).
• € 100 for the qualitative synthesis part on June 8 (including lunches, coffee and tea).

Registration is closed. If you wish to be informed about next year's course, please send an email to: Bartel.Wilms@ped.kuleuven.be
By fax: +32 (0)16 32 62 00
By post: Belgian Campbell Group, CMPO Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, A. Vesaliusstraat 2, box 3762, 3000 Leuven, Belgium

Please indicate whether you need an invoice to proceed with payment.
After registering, you will get more information about the exact location and payment of the fee.

More information

• about the Belgian Campbell Group: www.campbell-collaboration.be
• about the Belgian Branch of the Cochrane Collaboration: www.cebam.be
• about the international Campbell Collaboration: www.campbellcollaboration.org
• about the international Cochrane Collaboration: www.cochrane.org
• about 3ie: www.3ieimpact.org