Chevron Left
Back to Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials by Johns Hopkins University

4.7
stars
4,227 ratings

About the Course

Clinical trials are experiments designed to evaluate new interventions to prevent or treat disease in humans. The interventions evaluated can be drugs, devices (e.g., hearing aid), surgeries, behavioral interventions (e.g., smoking cessation program), community health programs (e.g. cancer screening programs) or health delivery systems (e.g., special care units for hospital admissions). We consider clinical trials experiments because the investigators rather than the patients or their doctors select the treatment the patients receive. Results from randomized clinical trials are usually considered the highest level of evidence for determining whether a treatment is effective because trials incorporates features to ensure that evaluation of the benefits and risks of treatments are objective and unbiased. The FDA requires that drugs or biologics (e.g., vaccines) are shown to be effective in clinical trials before they can be sold in the US. The course will explain the basic principles for design of randomized clinical trials and how they should be reported. In the first part of the course, students will be introduced to terminology used in clinical trials and the several common designs used for clinical trials, such as parallel and cross-over designs. We will also explain some of the mechanics of clinical trials, like randomization and blinding of treatment. In the second half of the course, we will explain how clinical trials are analyzed and interpreted. Finally, we will review the essential ethical consideration involved in conducting experiments on people....

Top reviews

SS

Feb 25, 2023

awesome detailedoverviwe of clinical trials. it gave me a new insight. Improved chances of my job selection in the field. I improved on subject a lot during the course. Thank you teachers and coursera

TS

Jul 3, 2018

High quality course ! covering important areas and detailed lectures, more and better than a mere introduction. Congrats ! My only regret : I'd have liked to hear more about NI and equivalence trials

Filter by:

26 - 50 of 708 Reviews for Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials

By Shalini S

•

Sep 19, 2017

This was an extremely interesting course. The topics laid out week by week were adequate and easy to complete. The only issue I would point out is there was very little interaction from the course coordinators. It would have been helpful to get feedback on some of the discussion topics. I would have also liked to see explanations of some of the answers on the quizzes. A list of further reading (including suggested books, published papers, interesting articles) would have been welcome. In all, it was a very useful course, however due to some of the issues mentioned previously, I refrained from purchasing the course. Th

By Ioannis K G

•

May 8, 2022

I think it is a course for the beginners that have already a basic knowledge of statistics. It is a course that gives you an idea about clinical trials design but it doesn't go into deep. Another fact is also that while it mentions other than RCT design it mainly focuses on randomization. I think it has to be: 1) wider, including other clinical trials designs, 2) go a little bit more deep in randomization process with more explanations and examples 3) improved the video lectures: sometimes the talking is fast during the presentation.

By Panagiotis N

•

Sep 12, 2017

This is an educational course that will introduce you many aspects of a clinical trial.

Things to improve: A. instructors/mentors are not responsive and any question that you may have, will remain unanswered and B.some videos are quite lengthy.

By PhiSanti

•

Nov 11, 2022

The course videos were good and very educative, but the questionnaires were very simple and easy. Only test mode response and very few assignments. It would have been very helpful to have some extra stuff to reinforce the learned material.

By Felipe A A C

•

Sep 10, 2020

The course should include lectures about real clinical trials and also analysis about the most useful statistical indicators to read the essays

By Bhaskar G

•

May 27, 2020

Nice, but statistical methods for calculation of sample size and power calculations must have been included in greater detail.

By Felix J G G

•

Jul 23, 2017

Explanations are complicated

By katayoun k

•

Jun 29, 2016

the lessons were too long in duration and i was really bored because the teaching didn't have anything engaging me to be more eager to listen and all the slides were with the same background and design and there were no pictures or animation or fun stuff to create some kind of diversity in the progress of the course.

By Engy B

•

Sep 10, 2019

Some of the videos are excessively long. All lectures are just written slides and narration, there isn't even a human figure in the videos, no interaction what so ever; making the videos a bit boring. The content is good it's like a concise comprehensive view on clinical trials.

By ABHIJIT B

•

Dec 13, 2020

Some of the questions were so puzzling , it was hard to say true or false, its not that i didnt know what was the answer, but the question was so formulated that both true and false looked the same, every quiz session had atleast one such time of questions. There were a lot of references as well. the good part is there was also text as a subtitle for those who has difficultly with american accent. Altogether if you never know how and what clinical trial is and done, this course will set your feet strong in the basic and you cant just finshing the course by sleeping as the questions are damm challenging. On top of this they have added a timer which tells you that your time to clear the assigments are comming or you loose your certificate. I was completely new to this feild and had a hard time initially in the quiz round, but tried hard to pass with 89% marks. Dr. Abhjit Basu

By Victoria S

•

May 26, 2020

The course would even be better with more graphical illustrations in the lecture, the blocking part was a bit difficult to understand especially if the allocation ratio is different than 1:1. Going through examples would be good. Another benefit would be to summarize up the most important parts in the end of each lecture to repeat it directly for the participant. For the Question part, if a longer example of a trial case is not entirely clear it would be nice (if someone keeps having it wrong if there is a help button wich explains it, for a better understanding instead of "it is false" that does not help to understand it.

By Charles W

•

Jan 17, 2023

I found the course helpful to learn about a number of topics.

However, I think the following could be improved:

1) There are references to New York Times articles that can be fully viewed without a subscription. I believe these are used for at least 2 discussion topics.

2) I am not sure why, but the deadlines for each "week" were much less than a week. This ended up being OK for me. However, I would guess it might not be OK with everybody, and there are certain weeks where that might have even been more of an issue for me.

Thank you very much!

By Ayesha A

•

Oct 17, 2020

This course is extremely helpful in advancing knowledge regarding the crucial steps involved in designing and interpretation of clinical trials and other types of clinical studies.It has improved my knowledge, clarified my ambiguities regarding various important steps involved in clinical trials and ofcourse helped me to enhance my research skills.I will like to take advance versions of this course too! Thanks a lot coursera as well as John Hopkins university to design such a valuable course that is easily accessible throughout the world!

By Meagan K

•

Jan 14, 2021

I learned so much! The instructors were extremely knowledgeable and laid out all the information in a way that was easy to understand. I actually looked forward to listening to the lectures and completing the quizzes. Some of the quiz questions were tricky, almost felt like trick questions, but they overall challenged you and required you to pay attention to the lectures. The notes feature was extremely helpful. I am so glad I took this course and grateful to Janet Holbrook and Lea Drye for making it available for free online.

By George L

•

Feb 18, 2021

Great course. Great teachers. Great information. Prior to taking this course, I am not sure that I had a clear picture of all the work that takes place in the background before a study ends up as a publication. After taking course, I believe I can better judge if the right study designed was used and how the choice of design can affect results. In future journal club presentations, I feel equipped to discuss instead of reporting the studies. I highly recommend this course for everyone in the healthcare space.

By Vic C

•

May 6, 2016

Excellent course. Compared to others in the Coursera Catalog this course was rigorous to be sure to take great notes or you will be revisiting the lectures and literature often. I work on the financial side of clinical trials and this course was extremely helpful in filling in some gaps in my knowledge (many of those gaps I didn't realize I had!). Everything Johns Hopkins University puts out on Coursera has been top notch (my reference is the Data Science Specialization!)

By Vanessa L

•

Aug 7, 2021

This is a really interesting course that explains very well the basic principles for design of randomized clinical trials and how they should be reported. As a beginner in this area I thought it was very well explained the terminology used in clinical trials and the several common designs used for clinical trials, not being too overwhelmed with the material, just the right amount. I really like the way this course was made and the materials available, I wish there was more.

By Mafalda F

•

Feb 24, 2021

I have a background in molecular biology, so I am not used to reading literature on clinical trials and I had no previous knowledge about how clinical trials work. This course gave me the basis to understand how clinical trials are designed, their goals, and how to read a clinical trial paper and interpret them. The course is perfect for someone with a background in basic research in biosciences who wants to jump into medical sciences. I'm very happy with this course!

By Sangavai G

•

Jun 28, 2017

The course was very useful for me and came to know more about randomized clinical trials ,and other consort for writing trial design .it was very useful and i can add this certificate in my resume it will give weight to my resume for standing in clinical trial industry.and finally thanku for lecturers.they did an awesome job very keen on every topic explanations. hopefully expecting courses in clinical trials ,regulatory affairs

Thank you

sangavai

By Rafael S L O

•

Aug 12, 2020

An amazing course taught by Janet Holbrook, PhD and Lea T. Drye, PhD authorized by The Johns Hopkins University and offered through Coursera that allowed me to delve into the basic principles of Clinical Trials (Types of Clinical Trials, Randomization and Masking, Outcomes and Analysis, Ethics, Guidelines for Reporting Results as well as Clinical cases to evaluate whether or not Randomized Clinical Trials are still the golden standard).

By Durojaiye T

•

Jul 25, 2019

The course was very educative and informative. i got to understand the various clinical trial designs used as well as the rationale behind using such designs to conduct clinical trials. Also, i learnt about the CONSORT guidelines that serves as a guide for writer when writing their research paper in order to ensure quality reporting of research data gotten in clinical trials as well as ensuring transparency of data.

By Eduardo C

•

Jun 30, 2017

I develop clinical research (through registries and data collection in cardiac emergencies) in a small hospital in Brazil. We do not have search capabilities and yet a large number of data and information that needs a form for the wrong propagation. This course has helped me greatly in forming values and clarifying concepts that are very useful. I'm really charmed with a quality and will do more courses like this.

By Andreu N

•

Oct 17, 2019

Excellent training to get a good understanding of Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials very well organised, easy to follow by watching videos along with their transcript so I could compliment images and summary slides with detailed explanations of teacher.

You can also re-schedule the timelines as it better suits you.

I will continue training with Johns Hopkins University for sure.

By ARPIT M

•

May 2, 2020

the best thing about this course was the quiz at the end of each week. It was so deep and tricky that you cant crack if you were not engaged in the lecture completely. these days, such online courses have become away just to earn certificates with the easy assignment but definitely it was a different experience. I am glad that I found this course.

By Gabriel S

•

Feb 18, 2017

This course offers a broad, honest and critical view on the production and evaluation of RCTs. It is a useful introduction to the theme, although a small background may be required for full exploitation of its resources. I would highly recommend it for any student or professional in health care - being you directly involved with research or not.