Deepening Research Capacity of Health Sciences Librarians: Effectiveness of the MLA Research Training Institute (RTI) Online Program

Background: Launched in 2018, the MLA Research Training Institute (RTI) aims to address the gap in research education for health sciences librarians by providing advanced research training and support to increase their research competencies, confidence, and productivity. In 2020 RTI’s in-person curriculum was transitioned to a fully online program consisting of 16 online modules, mentoring support, a one-year hands-on research project experience, and a capstone research presentation at the MLA annual meeting. The number of participants was also expanded, including a select number of LIS graduate students who participate in the institute alongside practicing librarians. The RTI online program (tested and refined in RTI ’21 and RTI ’22) is funded in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).

Description: This paper will focus primarily on assessment methods and outcomes for RTI ‘21 and RTI ’22. Multiple assessments of RTI’s effectiveness are ongoing and include prior research engagement of participants, research confidence of participants across three time-points (pre-, post-, and one-year after the core modules), perceptions of participants concerning program performance and learning outcomes, and program impacts on participants’ research attitudes and behaviors in their institutions. The instrument used for assessing research confidence of participants is based on methods of Brancolini and Kennedy (2017) and adapted for the RTI training model. The Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test was performed to determine if there were statistically significant differences in the self-reported research confidence of the participants before and after the delivery of core modules each year. The non-parametric Friedman’s test of differences was used to evaluate the differences in median research confidence levels of RTI Fellows across three different time points. Content analysis was used for theming open-ended responses in participants’ reports concerning RTI program impacts. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data related to participants’ perceptions of program performance and learning outcomes.

Conclusion: RTI assessment findings for three RTI institutes (2018-2020) demonstrated that the RTI training model is sound and effective, and increases the research competencies, confidence, and productivity of participants, as well as having other positive impacts. This paper will describe assessment findings related to the two revamped RTI online institutes held May 2021-June 2022 (RTI ’21) and May 2022 – June 2023 (RTI ’22). These findings will show shifts of research confidence levels due to RTI online program participation and be compared with outcomes of the prior RTI in-person programs. Comparisons will also be made between the outcomes of librarian and LIS graduate student participants. Authors will add these results and offer conclusions in February 2023.