Transforming Chaplaincy is directly involved in cultivating new cohorts of research-literate chaplains. Two online courses will be offered beginning in 2019.

The main goal of these courses is to build research literacy skills: reading and applying research articles to the important work chaplains do as front-line healthcare providers in religion and spirituality. The aims of these courses include enabling participants to articulate the rationale for chaplaincy as an evidence-based profession; identifying and accessing research literature related to spirituality, religion, and health; critically reading and evaluating current research related to chaplaincy practice; and identifying ways of applying research to current practice.
RL 101
Introduction to Research Literacy
5 weeks

Participants in this course will:

  • Understand what is meant by an evidence-based approach to spiritual care and why it is important

  • Receive a broad overview of existing spiritual care research

  • Learn how and why all research is not equal through an introduction to major types of research

  • Gain resources to further develop research literacy

RL 102*
Exploring Methods in Chaplaincy Research
10 weeks

Participants in this course will:

  • Understand major types of research and why they differ in contributing to causal inference

  • Understand types of qualitative research and their contributions

  • Understand 5 common basic statistical tests and read tables with confidence

  • Develop familiarity with a growing literature

*Prerequisite: RL 101 or Religion, Spiritual and Health: An Introduction (Transforming Chaplaincy online course taught by Virginia Commonwealth University)

Each course offers small class sizes; both live and asynchronous sessions; is taught by chaplain-researchers; aids BCCI required research literacy prep; and counts toward research-related CE hours. For more information or to register, contact Andy Andresco at Andrew_W_Andresco@rush.edu. Two sections of RL 101, with 25 participants per section, will be taught in Fall 2019 / Winter 2020. Registration is $300. One section of RL 102, with 25 participant cap, is due to launch the week of October 14, 2019. Registration is $600.