We are delighted to report that DE-PASS first Training School (TS) “Consensus, concept mapping and best evidence statement (BESt) methodologies” was officially launched in June 2021. DE-PASS first TS will comprise of four separate events, and the first event took place virtually June 23rd, 2021. The event, co-hosted with the Physical Activity and Health Research Cluster (PAfH, University of Limerick, Ireland), included a plenary webinar and break-out rooms and was titled “Defining, searching and analysing best evidence using SLRs, Meta-analysis and Realist Synthesis – intersecting methodologies and theory”. The first TS event targeted DE-PASS members, early-career investigators (ECI) and Postgraduate students (PG), and members of the PAfH Research cluster. The virtual TS event was highly successful with 115 attending (80 DE-PASS members, 15 PAfH members, and 35 (ECI)/(PG) members).
The main speaker at the virtual event was Prof Caterina Pesce (University “Foro Italico” of Rome) who delivered two outstanding, thought-provoking sessions. Session 1 focused on ‘systematic meta-review of determinants, moderators and mediators’, while session 2 related primarily to ‘realist synthesis of contextualized mechanisms’. Prof Pesce has over 80 international articles in peer-reviewed journals and is the author or co-author of 10 international books on exercise and cognition and physical activity for educational achievement.
In addition to Prof Pesce’ sessions, participants had the opportunity to take part in ‘break out room activities’ where they discussed (1) the nature of existing best scientific evidence in the context of the key factors that account for physical activity behaviours across life stages and (2) the most effective approach to gathering high quality/best scientific evidence.
Break out rooms’ were moderated by Prof. Cristina Cortis (University of Cassino e Lazio Meridionale); Dr. Grainne Hayes (University of Limerick); Dr. Roisin Cahalan (University of Limerick); Dr. Fiona Ling (Northumbria University, Newcastle); Dr. Kwok Ng (University of Eastern Finland); Dr. Simone Ciaccioni (University of Rome “Foro Italico); Dr. Gavin Tempest (Northumbria University, Newcastle); and Dr. Giancarlo Condello (University of Taipei). Prof Laura Capranica, Co-Chair of DE-PASS introduced and concluded the TS even.
The first TS Event was recorded and can be accessed here.
Session 1:
session 2:
Coming up next: TS 1 Event 2: 30th August (Interactive Tutorial): “Covidence training (SR software) + Risk of bias assessment training”; TS 1 Event 3: 23rd Sept (Webinar): “Application and Implementation of Group Concept Mapping Techniques“; TS 1 Event 4 30th Sept (Interactive Tutorial) “Implementation, analysis, and outputs pertaining to Group Concept Mapping”. More information to follow!!!!
