Research skills enhancement within WIT is actively encouraged both through the structured Masters programmes offered by the School of Business and on an institutional level through the formalised research methods course for postgraduate researchers.

Members of the Centre (Sinead Acheson and Sean Byrne) are involved in delivering a Research Skills Training Programme to healthcare professionals in hospitals across the region.  The programme has been designed to familiarise healthcare professionals with the research process.  The aim of this training programme is to enable learners to acquire an understanding of the components of, and alternative approaches to, the research process. The programme is delivered in four three-hour sessions, with the emphasis at all stages on interaction and participation.  

The Research Skills Training Programme addresses the following topics:

• Research topic selection.
• Hypotheses/research question formulation.
• Research design.
• Philosophical approaches to research.
• Qualitative methodologies.
• Quantitative methodologies.
• Statistical/computer tools for analysing data.
• Data presentation.
• Thesis/report composition: writing structure and evaluation.

In addition to the training sessions, Centre members are involved in providing ongoing mentoring support to those involved in conducting the projects.  This mentoring support starts during the skills training programme and continues for the duration of the project.

In September 2005, participants in the Research Skills Training Programme from Wexford General Hospital successfully presented posters of their project work to the ISQSH Annual Conference in Dublin.