Workshop Result: Teaching Structured Reviews to Environmental Engineering Researchers

As part of the 2019 biennial conference of the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors, a pre-conference workshop on the topic of structured reviews was delivered to 22 participants. The workshop had three objectives, namely: 1) raising awareness about the process of structured reviews; 2) demonstrating the process of structured reviews; and 3) encouraging participants to adopt a structured review format for future research. To achieve these objectives, three activities were undertaken, including: 1) a pre-conference web site was constructed where participants completed mandatory exercises before the on-site portion of the workshop; 2) group-work to learn the structured review process during the on-site portion of the workshop; and 3) voluntary follow-up including mentoring/coaching by workshop conveners to support the use of structured reviews in future research after the completion of the on-site portion of the workshop. Assessment of the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of workshop participants was undertaken using an on-site, anonymous, voluntary readiness assessment test (RAT) as well as an on-site, anonymous, voluntary comprehension assessment test (CAT), administered immediately preceding and following the on-site portion of the workshop, respectively. To support the long-term adoption of structured reviews in research, the workshop moderators provided mentoring/coaching to workshop participants in the months following the completion of the on-site portion of the workshop. The value of this long-term mentoring/coaching was assessed by an additional CAT administered one year after the completion of the on-site portion of the workshop. The purpose of this paper is to share: 1) workshop content and format that could be used by other conveners of similar workshops; 2) results of the analysis of the RAT and CATs; and 3) the author's experience with mentoring/coaching workshop participants on the use of structured reviews.