UMMS

Research Design & Statistical Consulting

The department boasts extensive and diverse expertise in research design and statistical analysis. Several faculty members are skilled in qualitative data analysis and the application of measurement data to test generation. Work within the department includes:

Ongoing collaboration with the American Gastroenterological Association in developing, implementing, scoring and improving their national formative test
Numerous publications on solutions to complex and dynamic issues surrounding health care and medical education systems
Development of conditional reliability and adaptive testing algorithms for shortening testing procedures without loss of reliability
Development of simulation training and assessment of its clinical performance benefits for optimizing hands-on practice sessions in medical education

The department also is working towards a formal system of integrating qualitative and quantitative data into a single analytic framework for testing theories and generating hypotheses. We are exploring meta-analytic techniques to improve the ability to generalize research findings.

Contact: James T. Fitzgerald, Ph.D.

DMAG

The Data Management and Analysis Group plays a crucial role in department research projects. The group’s skills in developing, maintaining and analyzing large datasets allow for information to be standardized and to be easily shared among faculty members. DMAG maintains quantitative and qualitative data for diabetes research surveys, geriatric education assessments and other studies.

The group ensures the validity of data analyses produced by the department, including:

Organizing and combining disparate datasets
Working with the Office of Medical Education to refine student records
Cross-validating using both SAS and SPSS

DMAG services also are available to those outside the Department of Medical Education.

Contact: James T. Fitzgerald, Ph.D.