EURO480-23CY (C) Cross Year 2023

Research Topic

30 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 17 July 2023
End Date: Sunday, 7 July 2024
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 20 August 2023
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 7 April 2024

Description

This core course in the EURO Honours programme will consist of two parts – the first semester will feature a course work in research training and methods and the second semester will cover more intensive individual research and writing of the Honours dissertation.

This course provides post-graduate students of different levels with strategies to develop a knowledge base and basic skills in research. This is a highly interactive course which introduces the basics of research practices on a post-graduate level, thus, could be deemed useful and interesting for the students of various disciplines. All post-graduate students who major in European and EU Studies -- EURO BA Honours, MEURO, MA (thesis) and PhDs -- are asked to complete this “Research Training” course.

The course in Research Training and Methods has as its primary goal to increase and improve the students’ level of research skills.  The attainment of this aim will have the effect of more research competent students and a higher level of a quality research output. Course content will focus on the basic building blocks of any research project – research question and hypothesis formulation; formulation of novelty, importance and relevancy of research; the place and role of theoretical models; philosophical positioning of a research inquiry; concerns around validity and reliability; and ethics matters in social science research. Students will have an opportunity to practice writing literature review; conduct and discuss their recorded interviews; present at the post-graduate conference; participate in weekly research colloquia; and establish practice and culture of regular consultations with their research supervisors.  Student will have an opportunity to learn about diverse methods in data collection, analysis and interpretation, such as interviewing, surveying, content analysis, case study, archival method, direct and indirect observations, etc., and about qualitative and quantitative approaches.  Students will have the opportunity to develop skills suitable for refereed publications and academic presentations.

This course will provide skills on a non-discriminatory interdisciplinary basis allowing students to participate in their Honours, Masters and PhDs degrees equally. Students will acquire skills in developing a research approach, understanding and using a theory-informed approach and diverse methods for strengthening research findings and supporting methodological choices.

Learning Outcomes

  • The course provides an avenue to increase competency in a core academic discipline of the students’ degrees that focus on the European and EU Studies.  As a student in this course you will acquire skills in:
  • developing a research approach  
  • understanding and using a theory-informed approach
  • surveying and overviewing relevant academic literature following honest academic practice
  • developing a research strategy informed by validity and reliability considerations
  • navigating diverse methods in data collection, analysis and interpretation considering human ethics matters
  • delivering research outputs (orally and in writing).

    Research skills and attributes in the focus of this course are sought by employers as they can used in a range of applications. In addition to these skills, the course also targets skills in IT, information search (including library use and bibliographical skills), discussion/debate, oral presentation, writing.

    Students will comprehend the influence of global conditions on their discipline and research reflections on the global processes, and will be competent in engaging with global and multi-cultural contexts from a research-informed standpoint.

Prerequisites

Subject to approval of the NCRE Director.

Lecturer

Milenko Petrovic

Guest lecturers from European universities (in person or via video  link)

Textbooks / Resources

There is no single text book for the course. The collection of selected readings will be available for the students prior to each seminar.  Students are strongly encouraged to form their own bibliographies.

LINKS
Relevant material, which may be helpful, can be found at the Library Subject Guide for European Union Studies: http://canterbury.libguides.com/euro
 
Information about European Union programme (EURO) at the post-graduate level can be found at the website of the National Centre for Research on Europe: http://www.europe.canterbury.ac.nz/.

Course links

EURO480 Learn

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $1,990.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Language, Social and Political Sciences .

All EURO480 Occurrences

  • EURO480-23CY (C) Cross Year 2023