Course objectives

The purpose of this course is to provide students with the skills to design and implement an academic research project based on empirical analysis of real data.

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of the course, students are expected to be able to:

• Critically think and analyse scientific literature
• Identify and formulate pertinent and operationalisable research questions
• Design and implement independent small-scale empirical research
• Use research methods of data collection and analysis
• Learn and utilise analytical software for data elaboration and processing
• Present research outcomes based on scientific academic standards.

Course content

• Development of Research Design
• Design of Research Questions
• Review of the Literature 
• Building Theory
• Construct hypotheses and operationalisation
• Design of methodology
• Qualitative tools of data collection and analysis (e.g. in-depth interviews, focus groups)
• Quantitative tools of data collection and analysis (e.g. Online questionnaires, statistical techniques)
• Writing of final report.