Courses

This course will provide a foundational overview of the Rehabilitation Science research field, including its role and evolution within the Canadian health care system. It will discuss the role of science in the progress of a health discipline. The course will examine historical, current, and emerging theories, frameworks and models in Rehabilitation, framing them in the context of problems currently facing the field. The construction of a conceptual framework and its role in the planning of a research study will be discussed. Students will consider how pre-existing theories, frameworks and models in Rehabilitation may inform a conceptual framework for their research project.

This is a weekly lecture and seminar course aimed at providing students with an introduction to the wide range of research design methodologies currently being applied in the field of rehabilitation science.  Students will be introduced to hypothesis generation, observational and experimental research designs, qualitative research methodologies and measurement theory with relevant examples. We will review current funded proposals from the faculty ranging from topics on basic science to model of care interventions. The major assignment will be grant proposal suitable for the current CIHR format.

This course which will consist of seminars, tutorials and laboratories will focus on the physical assessment of the function/dysfunction of the neuromuscular system. Specific sensorimotor functions including reaching, upright posture, gait and lower extremity movement will be analyzed. The functions will be analyzed conceptually as to their importance for a healthy life style, measured using state of the art technology in select patient populations and compared to normative parameters in the current literature. Tutorials will focus on strategies to minimize physical dysfunction and optimize performance. Students will be responsible for preparing background material in seminars for each of the sensorimotor functions included in the course.

A major research paper of at least 6,000 words in length (excluding footnotes and references) is required. An alternative form of evaluation can be negotiated between the student and instructor, however, any variation must be approved by the REH 2000H Course Coordinator.

The timeline for the course must coincide with the regular class schedule start dates. Each term is 13 weeks in length. An individual reading and research course may be undertaken over one or two terms (depending on the frequency of meetings). All course work must be submitted in ample time for the instructor to grade the material and submit the final course grade in conjunction with the standard course deadlines. Any extension of time given to the student to complete course work beyond the end date of the course must be approved by both the instructor and REH 2000H Course Coordinator.

This Seminar Series focuses on introducing students to basic competencies and skills essential to succeed in graduate school and beyond. The course aims to conceptualize MSc studies as part of students’ life-long professional development journey in the field of Rehabilitation Sciences. During the course, MSc students will begin to acquire essential academic skills and professional attributes as well as establish foundations of critical thinking and cultural competencies (i.e., around marginalized communities, gender/sex etc.) in an interdisciplinary collaborative learning environment.

This Seminar focuses on establishing core competencies and skills to succeed in graduate school and beyond. The course aims to conceptualize graduate studies as part of students’ life-long professional development journey in the field of Rehabilitation Sciences. During the course, students will consolidate foundations of the essential academic skills (e.g., critical appraisal) and professional attributes (e.g., scientific writing, speaking, time/ project management), while deepening critical thinking abilities and expanding cultural competencies (i.e. around marginalized communities, gender/sex etc.) in an interdisciplinary collaborative learning environment. Please see new syllabus attached for details on each topic and assignments.

REH3001H will be conducted in Year 1 in order to serve as a platform to launch successful graduate studies.

This introductory course examines key constructs of and conceptual approaches to disability, body/embodiment, and voice drawn from the social sciences and disability studies. Further, it discusses how these constructs and approaches can inform, and potentially inform, research and theory in rehabilitation science. It critically considers several influential perspectives on disability, body/embodiment, and voice (e.g. biomedical, Cartesian, postmodernist, feminist, social constructionist, social justice). It also introduces important classic and innovative research methods for studying disability, body/embodiment, and voice which are illustrated by examples from current and ongoing real-life research studies. The format for the course combines presentations by the course instructors and guest speakers who are academics and community disability activists engaged in this area of scholarship and research, class discussion, and student-led presentation/seminars.

In this course, students will learn the fundamental concepts of knowledge translation as they are applied to the delivery of health care services. Examples from all aspects of health care delivery will be provided with strong emphasis on the delivery of rehabilitation.  The course is designed to give students sounds skills in the current state of science in the field of knowledge translation. The course will focus on the understanding and application of theories and frameworks as they are applied to knowledge translation, the use of integrated knowledge translation models, knowledge translation strategies and their effectiveness, the development of knowledge translation plans for the dissemination of research, organizational change and its relevance to the field, and examples of knowledge translation innovations and exemplars in the rehabilitation community. The course will run weekly for 12 weeks, and each class will be 2 hours in length. In general, the first hour will be the introduction of a topic, either with the course instructor or a guest speaker, and the second hour will be an application of the topic either as small or large group work that will facilitate critical thinking and discussion.  

The course begins with a discussion of different theoretical and methodological approaches to gender, sex, work and health. The contributions of sex and gender theory and methods to quantitative and qualitative research on work and health are critically examined. In particular, it will explore different strategies for bringing a sex/gender lens to research and outline various approaches to conducting sex- and gender-based analysis. The course will focus on how gender, work and health perspectives play out in substantive research areas including musculoskeletal injuries, sleep disorders, traumatic brain injury, paid and unpaid caregiving, parenting, issues related to children and older adults as well as relevant knowledge mobilization approaches. As a seminar course the requirements include class participation, leading a class seminar, a short critical reflection essay, a term paper outline, and final term paper that is a critical review of sex and gender informed literature related to a work and health topic of each student’s area of research interest. Alternative assignments may be considered with permission of instructor.

In this course, students with be introduced to a variety of methods for completing scholarly literature reviews in the field of rehabilitation sciences. This will include systematic literature reviews, qualitative meta-syntheses, quantitative meta-analyses, and scoping reviews. Students will be taught systematic methods in order to be able to: i) define a review question; ii) develop effective search strategies; iii) retrieve relevant evidence; iv) review and critically appraise evidence gathered; v) analyse and synthesize the findings; vi) develop research and clinically-relevant recommendations from the synthesized review. This course will consist of both faculty and student led lectures, seminars and discussions. Students will apply the principles they have learned within the course to develop a review protocol.   

Neuroscience research is rapidly advancing our understanding of the neural basis of cognitive function and dysfunction. The relatively new field of rehabilitation neuroscience has begun to inform our understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying recovery from brain injury; the translation of basic research into clinical interventions with demonstrated efficacy remains in the earliest stages. This graduate lecture course in cognitive neurorehabilitation will enable students to gain n in-depth understanding of the models and theoretical frameworks currently guiding research and practice in four core cognitive domains typically targeted in neurorehabilitation interventions: memory, visuospatial functions, executive control/attention and cognitive communication. The course will be organized into four modules built around these core domains. Each module will comprise two lectures (i. basic theory and models and, ii. advanced concepts and state of the art research), followed by a student-led seminar. Each seminar will examine how the material covered in the first two lectures of the module may inform the conduct of rehabilitation neuroscience research, including the design and evaluation of novel interventions.

This course explores a range of qualitative research methods and theoretical perspectives with emphasis on the role that theory plays across the different stages of the research process. Students will examine the underlying theoretical assumptions of qualitative research methods and the implications that these assumptions have for framing a research problem, study design, data collection, and data analysis. We will explore ethical considerations, efforts in decolonizing qualitative research, arts-based approaches in health research, assessments of study quality, and the role of writing in qualitative research. The course provides opportunities to attain practical, hands-on experience with developing research questions, data collection, and data analysis. A prior version of the course, JRP1000, was originally designed in 2009 by Dr. Pia Kontos (Dalla Lana School of Public Health) and Dr. Barbara Gibson (Rehabilitation Sciences Institute). The 2025 course will be offered by Dr. Janet Parsons (Rehabilitation Sciences Institute), who has previously led JRP1000.

This course introduces a range of qualitative research methods and theoretical perspectives with emphasis on the role that theory plays across the different stages of the research process. Students will examine the underlying theoretical assumptions of qualitative research methods and the implications that these assumptions have for framing a research problem, data collection, analysis, and dissemination strategies, including traditional and arts-based approaches. The course provides opportunities to attain practical, hands-on experience with developing research questions, data collection, and data analysis. It was designed in 2009 by Dr. Pia Kontos (DLSPH) and Dr. Barbara Gibson (Rehabilitation Sciences Institute). The course is an introductory level course and has no prerequisites; however, preference will be given to students enrolled in a thesis-based graduate program and some knowledge of social theory is beneficial toward success in the course. Permission of the instructor is required for enrollment. Audits are not generally accepted. Priority is given to students in departments/faculties that are ‘contributing members’ in CQ, and to those with optimal backgrounds and current research situations for benefiting and contributing to the course.

This course is part of the Essentials in Qualitative Research course series, an integrated graduate-level set of courses in qualitative research methodology. The course is offered collaboratively by the Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the Rehabilitation Sciences Institute.