IBCLC certificants need a good understanding of basic research methodologies, critical reading skills and familiarity with statistical measurements.
Courses that focus on research outside the health sciences will not be accepted. For example, a research course that focuses on English literature, economics, marketing and/or legal research will not meet the introduction to clinical research requirement.
The table below describes typical courses that meet the introduction to clinical research requirement.
| Typical Course Name | Typical Course Description |
| Introduction to Critical Inquiry and Research | Introduction to fundamental theories, concepts, evidence, and competencies pertaining to scientific inquiry, evidence-based and informed practice, and research utilisation in health care. |
| Health Sciences Research Methods | This course will cover research study design, measures of disease occurrence and disease association, the different sources of error in observational research, a conceptual approach to multivariable analysis, principles of biostatistics, with special emphasis on means, proportion, regression coefficients and contingency tables. Also covered: analytic statistics and epidemiologic research methods. |
| Statistics for Health Professionals | This course focuses on basic concepts of statistics such as measures of central tendency and variability; concepts of test validity, reliability, and objectivity; and on basic techniques used in inferential statistics. Emphasis will be placed on interpreting scientific peer-reviewed research. |
| Introductory Statistics | Elementary introduction to statistics. Topics include descriptive statistics,probability, and estimation and hypothesis testing for means and proportions. |
| Public Health Research and Methods | This introductory research course is designed to present basic concepts and methods of public health research. Emphasis is placed on critique and use of current community and public health research methods. |
| Ethics andthe Responsible Conduct of Research | This course will cover topics related to the responsible conduct of research such as conflicts of interest, responsible authorship, policies regarding the use of human and animal subjects, handling misconduct, proper data management, research funding rules and procedures. Students will review and present case studies for class discussion. |