INTERVENTIONS

Credit Hours: 3 · Graduate Course URL: canvas.rice.edu/courses/33575

This course will prepare students to conduct high-impact research across the translational continuum in the social, psychobiological, and behavioral sciences. In this course, students will gain a thorough grounding in the conduct of Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) and develop competence in the planning, design, and execution of clinical trials involving behavioral interventions. After taking this course, students will be able to plan and conduct longitudinal observational studies and clinical trials that have the potential to change practice guidelines, health care policies, and third-party coverage for health-related outcomes. The first two weeks of the course will cover causal inference in experimental and observational studies and address various implications of counterfactual thinking. The remainder of the course will provide training in planning, designing, and conducting translational research with a focus on randomized controlled trials of health-related behavioral interventions. Each student will develop and write a research grant proposal that will serve as the course "Final." Recommended Prerequisite(s): This course has no specific course prerequisites. It is designed to be most useful to students with knowledge of basic (i.e., undergraduate level statistics and research methods) that are pertinent to the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences.