MSc:ResearchMethods

Research Methods

• Course name: Research Methods
• Course number: XYZ

Course Characteristics

Key concepts of the class

• Goal-Question-Metric approach
• Experimental design
• Basics of statistics

What is the purpose of this course?

The main purpose of this course is to present the fundamentals of empirical methods and fundamental statistics to the future software engineers and data scientists, on one side providing the scientific fundamentals of the disciplines, and on the other anchoring the theoretical concepts on practices coming from the world of software development and engineering. As a side product, the course also refreshes the basics of statistics, providing the basis for more advanced statistical courses in the following semester(s) of study.

- 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 fundamentals of statistics and probability theory
• Remember the basic models for experimentation and quasi-experimentation
• Remember the specifics and purpose of different measurement scales
• Distinguish between random variable and random process
• Explain the difference between the correlation and causation

- 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 value of experimentation for software engineers and data scientists
• the basic concepts of an hypothesis
• the concept of correlation
• the fundamental laws in statistics
• the concept of Goal-Question-Metric approach

- 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 ...

• Apply Goal-Question-Metric approach in practice
• Apply the fundamental principles of experimental design
• Apply reduction to quasi-experimentation experimental design
• Apply statistics and probability theory in practice
• Apply hypothesis testing technique in software analysis

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. XXX

Typical questions for seminar classes (labs) within this section

1. XXX

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