MSc Advanced Process Integration and Design

Year of entry: 2024

Course unit details:
Research Techniques and Methods (Skills)

Course unit fact file
Unit code CHEN64421
Credit rating 15
Unit level FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree
Teaching period(s) Semester 1
Available as a free choice unit? No

Overview

This unit develops skills essential to the research proposal and dissertation units. Students work in groups, studying a research theme - which is not necessarily linked to research area of their proposal and dissertation.

The first theme uses lectures and workshops to discuss and give experience of the various types of scientific and engineering literature, their use in literature surveys, their use in summarizing the state of a research area, and critical assessment of them explain the structure of a project proposal.

The second theme covers project design: experimental design and the time and resource planning required to deliver a successful project.

At the start of the module students are given a list of research themes with a short summary and some good papers (normally one review article and a number of research papers). They are assigned to groups, each with a different theme, based on expressed preferences for themes.

 

Group work:

1. Students will work in groups to conduct a literature survey on their group’s research theme, Having identified and understood the state of the art of that area, they will report on the literature survey and summarize the research theme in a scientific poster. Students will be given lectures on literature searching and a workshop during timetabled sessions, and do the survey outside of timetabled sessions.

2. Students will work in groups to design a poster presenting all or part of their research theme.

 

Matters of plagiarism and the importance of citing others’ work are important to this unit. A prerequisite is the course’s online exercises and/or self-assessment tests related to and citing the literature.

 

Aims

The unit aims to develop skills in:

- critical reading of academic literature

- searching research literature

- summarising scientific knowledge in a poster and written summary

- critical academic writing

- academic good practices

- designing an approach to solving a scientific or engineering problem

- writing research proposals

 

Learning outcomes

Classify the different types of written dissemination of research outputs in terms of scrutiny and timeliness.

Compare academic writing with other types of writing in terms of content and style

Identify good practice in academic writing

Conduct a literature survey into a given area, identifying key papers and summarizing the state of the art.

Report on the literature while avoiding academic malpractice.

Critically evaluate the quality and impact of individual research papers

Contrast groups of papers in a given research area

Summarize the results and methodologies used across a group of research papers in a given area.

Present summaries and evaluations of the literature in written and poster form

Design an efficient set of experiments to solve a research problem with a number of variables.

Plan a research programme, considering the resources required, and present a written report with GANTT chart, list of milestones and deliverables, and summary of resource requirements (assessed in the proposal module).

Appraise a research proposal

Work effectively in groups

Teaching and learning methods

Lectures and workshops supported by lecturers and graduate teaching assistants Group work outside timetabled periods to deliver group literature survey and prepare the poster Private study to summarize research article  Private study to review a a research proposal. Poster session to present a poster and answer questions on a research theme

 

Knowledge and understanding

-Understand broadly the contents of research papers on a given research theme relevant to their field of study;

-Reflect on the quality and potential impact of research papers

-Appreciate the peer review process for publishing research;

Intellectual skills

Summarise the contents of research papers on topics relevant to their field of study in written and oral form.  

Provide an overview of a research theme from the contents of relevant research papers;

Reflect on the process of searching the literature

Practical skills

Prepare diagrammatic, written and oral material to communicate research concepts effectively;

Use their own words to report published work;

Carry out an effective literature search

Transferable skills and personal qualities

Communicate research aims, methods, results and conclusions to a non-expert audience;

Gather information using a literature search;

Distil and summarise complex concepts;

Work effectively in groups.

Assessment methods

Assessment Task Length Weighting within uni (if relevant)

Continuous Assessment

- 100%
1. Synopsis of a research article 10h 10%
2. Literature survey of a research theme (with peer assessment weighting individual marks in the range 0.8x - 1.2x) 35h 30%
3. Summary and critical analyss of a research aritcle  15h 40%
4. Presentation of a research theme in the form of a poster (group mark for poster and individual mark for responses to questions) 10h 20%

 

Feedback methods

See Table above

Recommended reading

Critical Thinking Skills (3rd Edn) Cottrell S., Macmillan Higher Education ISBN 9781137550507

 

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Practical classes & workshops 11
Independent study hours
Independent study 139

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Bernard Treves Brown Unit coordinator

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