Critical thinking and Appraisal Resource Library

NEW ARTICLE ON PLOS: Establishing a library of resources to help people understand key concepts in assessing treatment claims—The “Critical thinking and Appraisal Resource Library” (CARL)

‘People are frequently confronted with untrustworthy claims about the effects of treatments. Uncritical acceptance of these claims can lead to poor, and sometimes dangerous, treatment decisions, and wasted time and money. Resources to help people learn to think critically about treatment claims are scarce, and they are widely scattered. Furthermore, very few learning-resources have been assessed to see if they improve knowledge and behavior.’

‘Our objectives were to develop the Critical thinking and Appraisal Resource Library (CARL). This library was to be in the form of a database containing learning resources for those who are responsible for encouraging critical thinking about treatment claims, and was to be made available online. We wished to include resources for groups we identified as ‘intermediaries’ of knowledge, i.e. teachers of schoolchildren, undergraduates and graduates, for example those teaching evidence-based medicine, or those communicating treatment claims to the public. In selecting resources, we wished to draw particular attention to those resources that had been formally evaluated, for example, by the creators of the resource or independent research groups.’

Read the full article here – http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0178666