Course description
The course will stimulate participants to address and consider the dilemmas involved in developing, implementing, and evaluating intervention programs. The course will cover dilemmas related to needs assessment, target group categorizations, ethics, co-creation, partnerships, implementation, unintended outcomes, combinations of research methods, theory of science, and the double/triple role of being a researcher and evaluator/intervention developer.
Participants
The course is aimed for PhD students working with different aspects of intervention research (e.g. needs assessment, intervention development, feasibility studies, process- and effect evaluation, implementation studies). We welcome PhD students working on intervention programs within different research fields and topics and who use either quantitative methods, qualitative methods, or mixed methods. The course is both relevant for new PhD students who may use the course proactively in planning their research activities and for PhD students midway or at the end of their studies as preparation for writing up the discussion section of their thesis.
Intended learning outcomes
The course will:
1) provide the students with a critical and productive awareness of dilemmas in intervention research
2) stimulate the students to pose questions and reflect critically on the interventions they and other course participants are involved in and in this way scientifically strengthen their PhD projects
3) prepare the students for writing selected parts of the discussion section of their thesis.
Participants’ motivation
The course teachers will tailor the course to match the participants’ prerequisites, interests, and current challenges in their PhD projects. Please submit a short motivation (1-2 pages) including 1) a description of the aim of your PhD project, the content of the intervention program, key concepts and theoretical perspectives, methodological approach, and current stage in the Ph.D. process and 2) specification of three topics/ potential dilemmas you would like the course to cover (please see listed dilemmas in the beginning of the course description).
Please send the motivational letter to course leader Rikke Fredenslund Krølner rikr@sdu.dk, before May 1st 2024. She will then make the decision of who will get a spot on the course and we will inform you shortly there after.
Form:
The course is taught in discussion-based lectures, small group work, plenary discussions, and exercises. The teachers will create a safe space for discussing doubts and dilemmas in relation to participants’ PhD projects and for embracing and exploring different positions and perspectives. The topics of the course are inspired by issues, dilemmas and doubts often brought up by PhD students on intervention research projects in supervision sessions or encountered by the teaching team in the assessment of PhD theses.
The course includes three components:
1) 3 full course days in one week (20-22 May 2025). The participants will be presented with different critical perspectives and dilemmas in intervention research and asked to reflect on these perspectives in relation to their own PhD studies or selected cases in groups.
2) an interim period of three weeks in which the participants work individually with a) preparing a paper to be submitted three days before the closing seminar and b) a brief oral presentation for the closing seminar where the participants highlight which new insights, questions, and critical reflections the topics presented during the course have inspired them to make in relation to their own research project.
3) a closing research seminar (19 June 2025) in which the participants present their critical reflections on their own project and receive peer- and teacher feedback.
To facilitate networking, we will organize a social gathering with food & drinks in the evening after the first course day (participant fee)
To pass the course, participants will have three deliverables:
• Before the course: Submission of motivation and short description of PhD project (2 pages)
• Three weeks after the first three full course days: Submission of critical reflections on own PhD project based on take home points from the course (5 pages)
• Closing seminar: Oral presentation (5 minutes) and active participation in the discussion of other participants' presentations (peer feedback)
Literature
Literature will be uploaded on Itslearning, the platform for e-learning at University of Southern Denmark. In due time, participants will be informed via email that the platform for this seminar has been opened.
Lecturers
Rikke Fredenslund Krølner, Senior Researcher, Head of Centre for Intervention Research, SIF, SDU
Marie Broholm-Holst, Associate Professor, SIF, SDU
Tine Tjørnhøj-Thomsen, Professor, SIF, SDU
Stine Wehner Kjær, Researcher, SIF, SDU
Maj Britt Nielsen, Senior Researcher, SDU
Katrine Sidenius Duus, postdoc, SIF, SDU
Christina Bjørk, Head of Section for Health Promotion and Prevention, CKFF, Region H.
Course Fee
The course is free of charge for PhD students enrolled in Universities that have joined the "Open market agreement" or NorDoc.
For other participants there is a course fee of
DKK 5100
EUR 683