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Research literacy and critical thinking skills in massage education...
I'm curious to get everyone's opinions on this topic of teaching research literacy and critical thinking skills in massage schools as a required class for graduation. I'm not talking about making a mandate that all schools have to follow, but just if some schools adopted a class on this topic.
Is that something you think people are interested in? Would you have wanted to learn about research literacy in school and about the research going on in our field? If so, would you just want to skim it- maybe 10 hours of class time on this? Or would you want to go more in debth- maybe 20, or 30+ hours on it? If yes, why? If no, why not?
And I guess I should define research literacy so we're all on the same page..for this question, I'll define it as knowing where to go to look for research, how to read and understand it, and be able to distinguish the good from the bad.
I'm just wondering what other people's thoughts/feelings on this are. Thanks for any feedback, good, bad, or otherwise :)
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Julie Onofrio on
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I don't have a clue how to read or interpret research and I have even been reading articles to learn more but they are hard to stay interested in.
I think I am also jaded because I have a friend who is in research for a major university (not in massage) and she tells me horror stories about research and how the guys doing it throw out results and change things around so they can keep getting good results and more grant money.
I also don't know how they can actually really measure any results of massage since you can teach the exact same technique to a dozen massage therapists and if they all did it on the same person it would feel different and it feels different on different days.
I also have been thinking of volunteering for the research foundation to start making research fun and understandable and learn how to apply it to promoting massage.
Critical thinking is something else really -to me it is about learning to feel your emotions and not let them interfere with your thinking and actions. What does it have to do with research?
Even with me being researched challenged I still find it interesting and would like to know more- if someone could only make it understandable.
Julie
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Permalink Reply by Kim Goral on
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Julie, thank you for your thoughts!
The stories your friend tells you of people throwing out or changing results is unethical and a terrible example to be setting to students. Does she know who these people are and that this is definitely happening? If so, she really should report it. I hope this doesn't really jade your view of all researchers; that would be like painting the whole profession of massage as prostitution due to a small number of people who actually use it for that. And changing data in research would be equally, if not more unethical than prostitution in massage. Finding data that doesn't support your hypothesis is not always a bad thing- it's how you learn and ask new questions. (Think about it- if we always knew what the outcome of our research would be, there wouldn't be any need to do it in the first place!)
As for research on massage- yes, people do have slightly (or very!) different techniques and styles. It is something to consider when doing and interpreting research. However, I do not think that there is enough variation between therapists to drastically change the results if multiple therapists are using basically the same techniques and approach. I have had many massages from many different people, as I'm sure everyone on this forum has. But I think we can all agree that a good massage is a good massage. For example, if Swedish massage is the most effective type of massage to reduce anxiety (we don't know if it is, I'm just throwing this out for sake of argument), then a good Swedish massage given by different massage therapists should get similar if not the same results, regardless of minor individual nuances. Does that make sense?
I think it would be great if you did volunteer work for the MTF! I'm sure they could use them. You would probably be able to learn quite a bit, too. There are some great research books out there, too, that should be easy for the beginner researcher to understand. Glenn Hymal's comes to mind first, though I know there are others.
I guess when I said critical thinking, I was referring to the ability to think critically about any research and not just accept everything that is stated in all articles. I think this is important when something doesn't sound quite right, but even more important if it is something you agree with- it is just human nature to be less critical of something that follows your pre-conceived opinions. Sometimes the research sounds good on the surface and supports your beliefs, but when you dig a bit deeper you may find flaws in design, analysis, or interpretation of results.
I think a lot of people feel the same about research as you, that they might be interested if it was easier to understand. That is really great feedback, and something that I may try to work on in the future..Thanks again for your comments! :)
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Permalink Reply by Ruth Werner on
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Great question Kim and I think you probably know my answer. Julie's observations are EXACTLY why research literacy needs to be part of massage education. These findings determine our practice, but if we can't figure them out, where does that leave us? And of course the fact that an article gets into print doesn't always mean that it's high-quality research (another of Julie's observations)-- we need the tools to be discerning consumers of information.
Thanks for bringing this up, and for all of you interested in the topic we'll hope to see you in Seattle in May for the Highlighting Massage Therapy in CIM Research meeting!
~Ruth
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Thanks, Ruth :) Yes, I will definitely be there- 2 months, from Friday, I believe! ;) Counting down the days to both the MA chapter meeting and Seattle (and soooooo much school work to do between now and then!!!!)!! :)
Ruth Werner said:Great question Kim and I think you probably know my answer. Julie's observations are EXACTLY why research literacy needs to be part of massage education. These findings determine our practice, but if we can't figure them out, where does that leave us? And of course the fact that an article gets into print doesn't always mean that it's high-quality research (another of Julie's observations)-- we need the tools to be discerning consumers of information.
Thanks for bringing this up, and for all of you interested in the topic we'll hope to see you in Seattle in May for the Highlighting Massage Therapy in CIM Research meeting!
~Ruth
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Permalink Reply by Rajam K Roose on
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I think it's a great idea to include in the massage school curriculum and I completely agree. The biggest hurdle I see, besides figuring out the course itself, is how to get students interested. Why do they need this? (p.s. Just a rhetorical question)
I meet so many therapists who don't seem to care about research and feel like science is bogus anyway, I think it will be important to convince educators why they need to include this topic in their schools. A lot of therapists have the mindset, well it feels good, who cares why!
But fresh students hopefully won't have those issues, but the owners of the schools might....
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Permalink Reply by Susan G. Salvo on
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Hey Kim,
Here's a link to a discussion that began last month on Research in the Classroom.
Check it out:
http://www.massageprofessionals.com/group/MassageEducators/forum/to...
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