GEN 6115 - Graduate Research Methods

Credits: 1

The course will instruct students in the principles of research to enable them to conduct research. Topics include, but are not limited to, literature searches and interpretation, experimental design and execution, data collection and processing, scientific writing, and report preparation. The course allows students to critically evaluate research literature, including standards, conference papers, and journal articles, to determine the current state of knowledge. Students will develop skills to propose and justify an appropriate research plan for a particular research problem, to choose and apply appropriate methodology, to judge the degree to which conclusions are supported by data, to judge the logical consistency of written material, and evaluate the outcome of a research project in terms of useable knowledge, and to design, defend and evaluate research proposals, and to apply techniques for writing clear and well expressed technical papers and reports. At the end of the course, the student will have completed a literature review for their thesis proposal or research project.