MSc:ResearchMethods

Research Methods

• Course name: Research Methods
• Course number: XYZ

Course Characteristics

Key concepts of the class

• Definition and types of research
• Review process
• Scientific fraud
• Experimental design

What is the purpose of this course?

The main purpose of this course is to present the research methods and concepts to the master students of Innopolis University of Software Engineering and Robotics programs. On one side the course provides the scientific fundamentals of the research activity and on the other anchors the theoretical concepts on practices coming from the world of software development and engineering. As a result of the course, students demonstrate on practice the acquired skills of formulating the research problem, collecting, analyzing data and presenting results of research.

- What should a student remember at the end of the course?

By the end of the course, the students should be able to:

• Remember the steps of research design
• Remember the sources of information in Software Engineering
• Remember the concept of measurement
• Remember the notion of Scientific fraud
• Explain the difference between 4different experimentation designs

- What should a student be able to understand at the end of the course?

By the end of the course, the students should be able to understand:

• The difference between Science and Engineering
• The nature of errors
• The ethics in research
• How to choose the papers
• How to summarize the research paper
• How to evaluate the research paper

- What should a student be able to apply at the end of the course?

By the end of the course, the students should be able to ...

• Summarize a research paper
• Evaluate a research paper
• Write good papers
• Present results of the research

Course evaluation

Course grade breakdown

		Points
Project proposal	45
Interim performance assessment (class participation)	10
Final presentation	45

Each component will be assessed on a scale 0-10, where 6 is the minimum passing grade. In case of exceptional work a 10 cum laude will be assigned, with a numeric value from 10 to 13 at the discretion of the instructor.

The grading, though, is not a simple linear combination of the components above. In particular:

• failing any part of the evaluation will trigger a failure in the entire course,
• if there are not failing components, the final grade will be computed as a weighted average of the components above approximated at the highest second digit and then rounded to the closest integer.

Retakes

Retakes will be run as comprehensive oral exam, where the student will be assessed the acquired knowledge coming from the textbooks, the lectures, the labs, and the additional required reading material, as supplied by the instructor. During such comprehensive oral the student could be asked to solve exercises and to explain theoretical and practical aspects of the course.

Grades range

Course grading range

	Range
A. Excellent	95-100
B. Good	75-94
C. Satisfactory	55-74
D. Poor	0-54

Resources and reference material

• Donald T. Campbell and Julian C. Stanley. Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research. Rand McNally College Publishing, 1963
• Creswell, John W. Educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research / John W. Creswell. — 4th ed.

Course Sections

The main sections of the course and approximate hour distribution between them is as follows:

Course Sections

Section	Section Title	Teaching Hours
1	Theory of research	16
2	Research domains	12
3	Students' presentations	6

Section 1

Topics covered in this section:

• Introduction to the course
• Scientific and engineering research
• Experimentation
• Scientific “productivity”
• Ethics in Research
• Writing good papers
• Being a reviewer
• Influence and presentations

What forms of evaluation were used to test students’ performance in this section?

	Yes/No
Homework and group projects	0
Midterm evaluation	0
Testing (written or computer based)	0
Reports	0
Essays	1
Oral polls	0
Discussions	1

Typical questions for ongoing performance evaluation within this section

1. What is research?
2. What types of computing research do you know?
3. What are the steps of paper evaluation?
4. What is the common structure of a research paper?
5. What discover methods do you know?
6. What is the internal and external validity?
7. What is the difference between true experiental and quasi-experimental design?

Typical questions for seminar classes (labs) within this section

1. List the criteria for the evaluation of the research
2. Based on the given criteria find the relevant papers in ACM DL, Scopus and IEEE Explore
3. Give an example of the rule of three
4. Name a few of the aspects of bad writing. Explain them.
5. Give examples of scientific fraud.
6. List 4 types of experimental design
7. List threats to internal validity

Section 2

Topics covered in this section:

• SSE research
• Robotics research

What forms of evaluation were used to test students’ performance in this section?

	Yes/No
Homework and group projects	0
Midterm evaluation	0
Testing (written or computer based)	0
Reports	0
Essays	1
Oral polls	0
Discussions	1

Typical questions for ongoing performance evaluation within this section

1. XXX

Typical questions for seminar classes (labs) within this section

1. XXX

Test questions for final assessment in the course

1. XXX

Section 3

Topics covered in this section:

• Final project presentations

What forms of evaluation were used to test students’ performance in this section?

	Yes/No
Homework and group projects	1
Midterm evaluation	0
Testing (written or computer based)	0
Reports	0
Essays	1
Oral polls	0
Discussions	1

Typical questions for ongoing performance evaluation within this section

1. XXX

Typical questions for seminar classes (labs) within this section

1. XXX

Test questions for final assessment in the course

1. XXX