A New Year and a New Look for PAEA’s Research Department
On the 2015 PA Program Faculty and Directors Survey, we asked you to describe the services and products that PAEA could provide to assist you with your work. A whopping 19 percent of your responses pertained to research, reflecting a clear demand among PA faculty for more products, training, and opportunities. We listened to your feedback. Read on to find out how we plan to better support PAEA’s research community!
Research Resources for Any Stage of the Process
The expectation for PA educators to produce high-quality scholarly work can be overwhelming, especially for new faculty who may be relatively new to research. We’ve curated a list of free resources to help you navigate the research process, from designing a survey to analyzing data to publishing your findings. Even experienced researchers may benefit from our catalog of grant-writing tips and funding opportunities.
You Helped Us Gather Data, Now Let Us Help You
PA program directors, faculty, and students collectively contribute thousands of hours each year to PAEA’s research efforts. Now, it’s your turn to reap the benefits. If you are interested in conducting original research, you can browse through past survey instruments and request raw data for your own analyses. If you aren’t sure what data you need, we can set up a call and talk with you about which variables will help answer your research questions.
PAEA’s survey data aren’t useful only to researchers — we also fill requests for research reports, for those interested in trends among the nation’s PA programs. We can do the legwork for you and provide descriptive statistics to help with evaluation, self-studies, and benchmarking. We can also disaggregate these stats — by public/private, Census region, etc. — to provide you with a custom report tailored to your needs.
Do we not collect the data you need? Submit an application to the Support to Advance Research ( STAR ) Program. STAR Program winners will have the opportunity to add questions to PAEA’s Annual Program Survey, which is completed by all member programs. After the survey closes, we will provide a de-identified dataset for you to work with.
Finding Funding
A common hurdle for ambitious researchers is finding funding for their studies. Our new research resources page includes some external funding sources, but did you know that PAEA also offers several grant opportunities to its members? If you’re a developing researcher, check out the Don Pedersen Research Grants Program. Experienced faculty with large-scale questions should consider applying to the Faculty Generated Research Grants Program. Is your study complete and have your results already been accepted? Apply for a Scientific Meeting Scholarship to present your findings at a conference other than the PAEA Education Forum or the AAPA Conference.
Need More Guidance? We’re Here for You (or We Will Be Soon)
Another exciting addition to PAEA’s research resources is a research consulting service, currently under development. If you need assistance refining your research questions, designing your research protocol, developing an analytic plan, or interpreting results, we are hoping to help. Fees will be similar to that for raw data and research report requests — free for an hour, then $50 for subsequent hours, up to a to-be-decided cap.
Are you interested in this kind of service? Make your voice heard! This program is still under construction so your feedback, ideas, and suggestions for how to design a service that will meet your needs are very valuable. Just email us at research@PAEAonline.org.
Are There Research-related Services or Resources That We Didn’t Think Of?
We always welcome comments and suggestions at research@PAEAonline.org.
