Course overview
This is a research methods course that is intended to equip students with problem-solving skills, research skills, writing skills, and statistical skills in order for them to succeed in a master’s programme. Students are expected to be able to describe, run, experiment, design, and administer a survey and to be able to write up their research in a standard way as if for publication.
Participants in piloting
The course is compulsory for students on the MSc in User Experience Design, MSc Computing, and MSc IT Security. The following groups of students were engaged:
- 143 students in academic year 2019 – 2020.
- 249 students in academic year 2020 – 2021.
Timeframe
academic year 2019 – 2020
academic year 2020 – 2021
Use of ALIEN services and tools
Students were asked to determine if there was a difference between entering text on a keyboard or on a tablet. They were asked to provide evidence of any claim made. Prior to being given this challenge students had learned about experimental design and about research paper writing but for the problem-based learning activity they had to design and carry out an investigation. In the first cohort, around 70% of the students chose to take an experimental approach with many using the metrics from Mackenzie’s work at YorkU. In running their own experiments, the students learned by doing about the need for instructions, the need to control order effects, and the need to be specific about technologies used. Over 50% of the students realised their first attempts were in need of modification. Because of COVID-19, in the second cohort most of the students used a survey and thus only gathered opinions. But again, many realised having built one survey that they were not asking useful questions or that they had answer choices that did not match what the respondents wanted to say so they learned a lot about surveys as they had to redo this activity to be able to offer evidence. In the exam for the course the students were asked to reflect on what they had learned.
