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 Winter / Spring 2019. There is no registration fee for these sessions, but priority is given to members of Transforming Chaplaincy Strategic Partner organizations (APC, NACC, NAJC, and ACPE) who were on the waiting list for the online course Religion, Spirituality, and Health: An Introduction to Research. Starting July 1, 2019, a registration fee will apply to RL 101. One section of RL 102 will be offered late in the Winter/Spring 2019 season.