Excellent beginner course on design and interpretation of clinical trials, complements a lot of what I reviewed on my classes and I would like to take a more advanced course on the topic. Thank you.
It is hard to describe what I didn't like about this course. I have a reasonable statistical background as well as a basic science and public health background, so I may be overly familiar with the material. I didn't find that going through the material helped me beyond what I could intuit from the basic principles of how to do a study. This isn't good, because I feel like someone without my background would be overwhelmed by the information presented and not be able to follow it. I also believe the lecture style was too conversational and not very organized. It feels like a little bit too much like the introduction to a journal club with 3rd year graduate students. The course should be for novices. Ultimately, everything felt like it was being described rather than taught. One positive I can say, is that I think the basic contents of the course are good, they just need to be organized properly and distilled down and focused. Instructors should resist any urge to randomly jump into discussions which are above the intended level of the course.
