Medical Education Research and Scholarship Resources | Medical Education Office of Assessment & Evaluation

Please click the tabs below to view resources for each stage of the research process. If you have questions or suggestions for additional resources to add to this site, please contact Jackie Gauer, Director of Program Evaluation, at [email protected].

Lit Review

UME Lab Meetings
UME hosts a lab meeting on the 3rd Wednesday of each month at 4pm. The group discusses new and ongoing research ideas, and can provide a helpful venue for brainstorming and refining research questions, as well as forming study teams. Anyone interested in conducting UME-related scholarship is welcome to attend. Email [email protected] to be added to the calendar event.

University of Minnesota Library
The UMN library provides a useful literature search tool, and access to thousands of journals to which the University has subscriptions. The Library also provides useful resources on conducting research and scholarship. The University Librarians also provide consulting services and assistance with literature searches. You can click here to request a consultation with a Health Sciences Librarian.

UMN Library Proxy Bookmarklet
Follow the instructions on this website to add a bookmark to your browser’s bookmarks bar that will reload a webpage - for example, the page for an article published in a paywalled journal - via the UMN Library proxy server. This will allow you to access any paywalled content that the University has a subscription to, without having to go through the UMN Library website or get on the VPN.

Citation Managers - Information from UMN Libraries
Citation managers are helpful software tools that let you track, organize, and annotate the literature you find, and then easily cite that literature in a manuscript. This page provides information on several citation managers, including links to user guides, workshops, and other resources.

Zotero
Zotero is a free citation manager software that integrates with Word, Google Docs, and other files. You can use it to track the literature relevant to your scholarship, create citations, and create bibliographies. View the UMN Library’s resources on using Zotero, including a quick-start guide.

Google Scholar
Google Scholar is a version of Google Search that searches literature and publications. It’s helpful for providing a broad range of results to the search terms, and can also be very useful for seeing which other manuscripts have cited a specific article.

MedEdMentor.org
MedEdMentor is a website the provides several services for scholars interested in conducting medical education research, including informative articles about medical education theories, a medical education-specific literature search function, and an AI tool that can suggest theories relevant to your research.

University of Michigan Website on MedEd Research Resources
The good folks at the University of Michigan College of Human Medicine host this website containing links to helpful articles on many different topics related to medical education research, scholarship, and evaluation.

AAMC Medical Education Research Certificate (MERC)
The AAMC offers a certificate program consisting of six virtual workshops covering various topics related to conducting research in medical education, including one on searching and evaluating the medical education literature.

AI Research Tools
Georgetown University hosts this website describing various AI tools that can help with lit review and other aspects of research, and also includes education resources on the effective and ethical use of AI for research.

Study Design & IRB

UME Lab Meetings
UME hosts a lab meeting on the 3rd Wednesday of each month at 4pm. Attendees are welcome to bring a research idea and have the group help refine a study design to answer the research question. Anyone interested in conducting UME-related scholarship is welcome to attend. Email [email protected] to be added to the calendar event.

Health Sciences Research Resources
This website hosted by the Research and Innovation Office provides links and information for Health Sciences researchers at UMN.

Statistician Consultations
Consultations with UMN-employed statisticians may be available through either the Biostatistical Design and Analysis Center (BDAC) or the Research Methodology Consulting Center (RMCC).

A Roadmap (5 Ps) for Completion of an Educational Research Project
This Academic Medicine Last Page article provides a one-page overview of the process of completing a research project in medical education, from start to finish. Ratan, Bani M. MD, EdD; Rane, Sanika MD; Appelbaum, Nital P. PhD. A Roadmap (5 Ps) for Completion of an Educational Research Project. Academic Medicine ():10.1097/ACM.0000000000006131, June 23, 2025. | DOI: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000006131

Curriculum Research Solutions: Shifting From "Did It Work Locally?" to Contributing to a Scholarly Conversation
This recently-published article in Academic Medicine provides helpful advice for scholars interested in publishing research on curriculum developments or innovations. (Cook, DA; Hauer, KE; Teherani, A; Leep Hunderfund, AN; Durning, SJ; Colbert-Getz, JM. Curriculum Research Solutions: Shifting From "Did It Work Locally?" to Contributing to a Scholarly Conversation. Academic Medicine ():10.1097/ACM.0000000000006072, April 22, 2025. | DOI: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000006072)

MedEdMentor.org
MedEdMentor is a website that provides several services for scholars interested in conducting medical education research. For those interested in study design, the website includes informative articles about research paradigms, as well as theories and frameworks that are commonly used in medical education research.

Institutional Review Board (IRB)
The IRB is the ethical review board for the University of Minnesota. All research projects need review and approval (or a determination of Not Human Subjects Research) by the IRB before they can begin.

ETHOS
ETHOS is the submission and tracking system for the University of Minnesota Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Investigator Manual
This manual, which is maintained by the UMN IRB, provides detailed instructions for researchers. Principal Investigators (PIs) are expected to be familiar with the content of this manual.

IRB Introduction Google Slides
These are the slides from an Introduction to the IRB presentation hosted by MEOC in 2019.

IRB Consultations
Jackie Gauer, Director of Program Evaluation, is available for brief consultations on writing and submitting IRB applications. You must be a UMN Medical School faculty, staff, or student conducting research on medical education to receive a consultation. To request a consultation, email [email protected].

Michigan State University Website on MedEd Research Resources
The good folks at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine host this website containing links to helpful articles on many different topics related to medical education research, scholarship, and evaluation.

AAMC Medical Education Research Certificate (MERC)
The AAMC offers a certificate program consisting of six virtual workshops covering various topics related to conducting research in medical education, including one on formulating research questions and designing studies.

Collect Data

Analyze Data

Present Findings

Example Conferences
There are many conferences that focus on or include medical education scholarship. Examples include: AAMC Learn Serve Lead (LSL); The Generalists in Medical Education (TGME); Association of Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) and the Ottawa Conference; AMA ChangeMedEd; International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE); AAMC Central Group on Educational Affairs (CGEA); AAMC Central Group on Student Affairs (CGSA); and ACGME’s Annual Educational Conference, among others. There are also many specialty-specific conferences, local conferences hosted by various medical schools, and one-off conferences and symposiums focused on particular topic areas.

UMN Medical School Brand Resources
The Medical School’s Communication Team maintains this page sharing branded resources such as PowerPoint templates, research poster templates, Medical School official logos, the Medical School’s Brand Use Guide, and more. You will need to log in with your UMN Internet ID and password to access the site.

UMN Medical School Google Slides/PowerPoint Template
Make a copy of this template to use the provided slides, which already have branded components and follow the UMN Brand Guidelines. The template also includes helpful Reference Materials at the end, including the UMN brand colors, sample design elements, and sample charts.

UMN Medical School Research Poster Template
Make a copy of this file to create a UMN Medical School-branded research poster. The slide has already been formatted to poster size, but may need to be edited depending on the poster requirements of the conference.

UMN Marketing Brand Resources
UMN’s central marketing team maintains University-wide and campus-specific branded templates on this website.

UMN Photo Library
This is a library of UMN-related photographs that are available for use in presentations, posters, and other materials.

Pixabay
Pixabay is a website that provides a library of millions of royalty-free images and stock photos. Read about the Pixabay Content License and Terms of Service to learn more about acceptable use for these images. Note that Pixabay also includes ads for paid images in its search, so make sure the images you want to use are listed under the “Royalty-free images” heading and not the “Sponsored images” heading.

Medical Student Funding Opportunities
This website hosted by the Office of Student Affairs contains information regarding funding opportunities for medical students, including conference travel funding.

Accessibility Resources
The UME Curriculum Team hosted a workshop on cultivating inclusion in digital spaces, which included tips on creating accessible slides and presentations. They shared the following materials from the workshop:
Cultivate Inclusion in Digital Spaces - slide deck; Leah Villa, OIT
Cultivate Inclusion in Digital Spaces - video
Accessibility - Quick reference document

Select Journal

Write Manuscript

ICMJE Style Recommendations
Most medical education journals follow the style recommendations from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). For the exact formatting requirements of each journal, check the journal’s Instructions for Authors (see below).

Journal Instructions for Authors
Each journal has its own Instructions for Authors that specifies what sorts of articles are accepted by the journal and how they should be formatted. The Instructions for Authors can typically be found on the journal’s website, or by searching [journal name] + “instructions for authors.” As an example, the Academic Medicine Instructions for Authors can be found here.

AMA Format Citation Guide
Medical Education journals often follow AMA format for citations/references. This guide shows examples for writing citations using that AMA format.

Guidance on Writing Innovation Reports
This article, written by the Editors of Academic Medicine, provides guidance on how to write innovation reports. It is specifically targeted to authors submitting to Academic Medicine, but much of the advice is applicable to writing innovation reports for any journal.

Zotero
Zotero is a free citation manager software that integrates with Word, Google Docs, and other files. You can use it to insert and manage citations in your manuscript, and it can also quickly generate and update the References section based on your works cited. View the UMN Library’s resources on using Zotero, including a quick-start guide.

For MD Students