This course covers the fundamental principles, of the scientific method. Students will learn the core skills of planning, designing, executing, evaluating and presenting research.

2 hours per week

Research Methods and Techniques (H)

None

Examination 60%, Coursework 40%.

It is the default expectation that all courses will offer opportunities for reassessment or deferred assessment. Where it is not possible to offer this in some assessment components, the grade achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade, and any exceptions for this course are described below.

[No exceptions]

Introduce students to critical research techniques through paper reviews, bibliographies, project proposals and presentations; Introduce students to core scientific principles and methods for conducting and evaluating scientific investigations;  Introduce students to the use of controls and statistical power in experimental design; Introduce students to important techniques for planning and managing a research project; Give guidance on how to structure theses and papers.

By the end of the course students will be able to:

1. Critically review research papers;

2. Perform a comprehensive literature search;

3. Write a comprehensive literature survey;

4. Write a convincing and appropriate experimental design for a chosen CS research problem;

5. Write a convincing project proposal;

6. Perform critical analysis of experimental designs;

7. Explain the importance of controls and sample sizes in experimental design;

8. Discuss issues of ethics approval of experiments.