BACKGROUND: The authors describe an educational program designed to prepare practicing dentists to engage in practice-based research in their practices--a trend receiving more emphasis and funding from the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR). METHODS: The Northwest Practice-based REsearch Collaborative in Evidence-based DENTistry (PRECEDENT), an NIDCR-funded network of which the authors are members, developed a one-day educational program to educate practitioners in principles of good clinical research. The program has four components built around the following questions: "What is the question?"; "What are the options?"; "How do you evaluate the evidence?"; and "How do you conduct a study?" RESULTS: The intensive one-day program initially offered in early 2006, which concluded with applications of research principles to research topics of interest to practitioners, was well-received. Despite their admission that the research methodology by itself was not of great interest, the dentists recognized the importance of the background material in equipping them to conduct quality studies in their practices. CONCLUSIONS: Dentists interested in participating in practice-based research view training in research methodology as helpful to becoming better practitioner-investigators. The PRECEDENT training program seemed to reinforce their interest. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: As dentistry evolves to become more evidence-based, more and more of the evidence will come from practice-based research. This training program prepares practicing dentists to become engaged in this trend.