Enhancing Access for Successful Evaluation (EASE) Learning Experience

PROJECT SUMMARY With the demand to train a diverse biomedical research workforce for a wide variety of research careers at an all-time high, it is imperative that the biomedical research training programs that support these trainees be as effective as possible. Rigorous and systematic program evaluation can help ensure that institutional training programs are achieving the program’s intended outcomes. If programs are not identifying training goals when creating their programing plans, it is unlikely they will be able to meet the needs of the defined outcomes, and without measuring defined outcomes, it becomes impossible to quantify the effectiveness of the proposed programming. Therefore, the emphasis of evidence-based program evaluation can support the creation of more effective programs, as well as the dissemination of program aspects that are successful and could be replicated elsewhere. Enhancing Access for Successful Evaluation (EASE) Learning Experience will support and build evaluation capacity for institutions with biomedical research training programs and inform program directors and administrators about effective and practical approaches to evaluate biomedical research training. Intended learning goals will include the following: The proposed learning modules will: 1) Ensure that biomedical training program administrators and investigators acquire a solid foundation of knowledge and understanding of approaches to evaluate and measure the quality and effectiveness of biomedical training programs. 2) Develop and enhance the technical skillset needed for rigorous evaluation of biomedical training programs, which includes, but is not limited to evaluation planning, an introduction to quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods data collection and analysis, and best practices and reporting and dissemination of evaluation findings. 3) Enable biomedical training program administrators and investigators to apply the knowledge and skills within diverse contexts for biomedical training program evaluations and across different scientific domains or disciplines, through culturally responsive evaluation and assessment methods. We will accomplish these learning goals through three specific aims. 1) Development of the EASE Learning Experience content on supporting and building evaluation capacity for biomedical research training. 2) Conduct a pilot of the EASE Learning Experience to assess the effectiveness of the modules and refine the modules based on evaluation outcomes. 3) Broadly disseminate the EASE Learning Experience to the biomedical research training community. The proposed EASE Learning Experience modules will aid in supporting biomedical research training programs through program evaluation capacity building in order to ensure that program directors and administrators have the knowledge and tools necessary to gauge program effectiveness, relevance, and continuous improvement programming that will ultimately benefit program trainees, institutions, and the broader scientific community.