Description
This module will introduce students to the practice of research at the advanced level and develop skills in critically appraising ongoing research projects and the techniques/methods which underpin them.
The core component will comprise six hours of tutorials exploring issues including:
- Theoretical approaches to scientific research
- The practice of science
- Framing research for publication
- Refereeing and journal metrics
Students will also attend at least 15 hours of research seminars either in-house as part of the brown bag programmes or at conferences/workshops elsewhere.
Students will keep a diary of the presentations they have attended and their reflections upon these.
They will then prepare an extended essay, either a survey of a field in the format of a review article for an appropriate journal, or a critique of a body of work of a specific researcher, again in a style suitable for publication. This essay may or may not spring from one of the seminars that students have attended.
Assessment
Key skills
Subject/discipline-specific skills
- Critical awareness of the philosophy of science and how this feeds into the research process
- Critically comment upon, analyse and reflect on the approaches and quality of research presentations
- Critically comment, analyse and reflect upon the work of a researcher and their research field in the context of broader debates within the field
Generic and intellectual (thinking) skills
- The ability to develop critical thinking skills
- The ability to summarise and synthesise relevant information
- The ability to develop and put forward reasoned arguments in written form