Centria University of Applied Sciences, Pietarsaari Campus

Supervisor Sara Ahman

Course Description:

Professional Studies and Module THESIS PROCESS:

­Research Methods 6 credits:

­Qualitative Research Methods and Quantitative Research Methods

Content:  ​

•  What is a good research
•  Student as a researcher.​
•  Qualitative Research methods: Interview. Observation. Case study. Analysis of texts.​
•  Conducting a qualitative research project​
•  Validity and reliability​

Goals for the Module and the course:

The students will be able to do graphical description of quantitative and qualitative data. They are in command of quantitative research process and have basic skills of collecting data for their statistical survey, making a data matrix and analyzing that data with a statistical programme and interpreting the gained information in the form of report. They have basic skills of collecting data for their qualitative research project, analyzing that data in a professional manner and interpreting the gained information in the form of report.

General Info:

Divided into 16-17 h lectures + 37-38 h independent studies

Students need to be present enough in class:  70%

Initially, I had a few observation classes, where I observed how the teacher is teaching, how he/she prepared this session, communication with students, questioning and answering, especially when a large number of students (around 80 students) in class and it was interesting to observe how a teacher is engaging all students, Very first point came in my mind was about Assessment, at the end of course teacher have to assess individual assignments, presentations, student’s participation in class, it is really challenging to make a fair assessment of 80 students class.

Assessment:

I learnt an important and an integral part of teaching by attending these practical teaching sessions and next week I have a couple of more teaching lessons, now this class comprised of 70 presentations by the students, this was a very informative class and helped me in broadening my horizons. I conducted this with the help of my supervisor. We adopted Summative Assessment Method. I was doing an assessment for the first time in a class full of students from multicultural backgrounds.

I had a detailed conversation with my supervisor before Students were presenting their assignments, she assisted me about the assignment and told me key points about how she actually makes the assessment, due to this I prepared myself and was confident during student’s presentations. The skills of the students were assessed; how well was the presentation given, was the student confident enough, how was the body language, how well informed was the student, was the student’s research was good enough, was it adequate? Did the student manage his or her presentation time properly?

Every student in a classroom possesses a unique set of talents and interests, as students were from different cultures and backgrounds, their learning abilities are differ from each other. I considered all these points while making assessment.

I had a focus in individual student. All students were briefed in detail about presentation and assessment criteria. Student with best eye contact, confidence with good meaningful content and time management was given full marks, it was noted how the student made use of the time, for example, the student who utilized all of his given 4 minutes properly with examples was given the highest marks compared to the student who delivered a much shorter presentation or the student who gave unrequired details and taking more than the required given time.

I took all the presentations helping my supervisor while taking detailed notes. The lecturer was professional enough to take notes herself too and keenly observe every student too and their data. After the completion of the class, we exchanged our point of views and thankfully he shared his notes with me too.

Besides the presentations, i also had a chance to come across the assignments submitted by the students. I along with the lecturer, checked if all these assignments were up to the mark or not, whether the assignment follows the instructions or not, following the pattern or not, is the data given important or not? does it follow the specific format?