Fees and funding

Fees

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2027, the tuition fees are as follows:

  • Modular (part-time)
    UK students (per annum): £1,500 per 15 credits
    International, including EU, students (per annum): £3,700 per 15 credits

Fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance. Postgraduate fees information .

Policy on additional costs

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

Course unit details:
Research Methods and Statistics

Course unit fact file
Unit code PCHN60170
Credit rating 15
Unit level FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree
Teaching period(s) Full year
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

This unit aims to:

  • Demystify and develop knowledge of research methods and statistics;
  • Develop confidence in carrying out research;
  • Help students design and plan a dissertation;
  • Provide students with the skills to critically evaluate the methodology of others’ research.

Content:

  • Nature of Research; presenting research findings and reviewing research
  • Types of studies, methods of sampling and ethics
  • Exploratory Data Analysis
  • Sampling and the bases of hypothesis testing
  • Significance Testing
  • ANOVA
  • Measures of Association – correlation and regression
  • Non-Parametric Tests
  • Power analysis and summary of statistical tests

Aims

This unit aims to:

  • Demystify and develop knowledge of research methods and statistics;
  • Develop confidence in carrying out research;
  • Help students design and plan a dissertation;
  • Provide students with the skills to critically evaluate the methodology of others’ research.

 

Teaching and learning methods

  • Lectures with hands-on use of SPSS statistical package.
  • Directed study with SPSS.
  • Directed reading.
  • Online asynchronous self-led study.

Knowledge and understanding

  • Understand the nature of research.
  • Critically review the methodology of scientific articles.
  • Formulate precise research questions.
  • Understand the issues involved in planning research such as bias, sampling etc.
  • Summarise data numerically and prepare informative graphs.
  • Understand the use of statistics in terms of prediction and inference.
  • Understand a range of approaches to statistical models of data, and how to assess the goodness of fit of these models.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of different statistical tests.
  • Synthesise knowledge by analysing a data set and writing a research report based on this analysis.

Transferable skills and personal qualities

  • Ability to critically review the methodology of scientific papers.
  • Understanding of statistical principles and their appropriate application to different sorts of data.
  • Familiarity with SPSS.
  • Enhanced critical thinking, project planning, numeracy, the use of IT, and scientific report-writing.

Assessment methods

  • 1,500-word assignment - 60%.
  • 1000- word assignment - 20%
  • Weekly Online Quizzes - 20%

Feedback methods

Written Feedback

Recommended reading

Essential:

  • Field, A. (2009). Discovering Statistics using SPSS. 3 Ed. London: Sage Publications.
  • Kinnear, PR and Gray, CD (2008) SPSS 16 Made Simple: Psychology Press.

Recommended:

  • Norman, G.R. & Streiner, D.L. (2008) Biostatistics - the Bare Essentials. 3 Ed. BC Decker.
  • Greenhalgh T. (2006). How to read a paper. The basics of evidence based medicine. 3rd Edition London: BMJ Publishing group.
  • Siegel, S., and Castellan, N. J. (1988). Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 35
Independent study hours
Independent study 115

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Garreth Prendergast Unit coordinator

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