This course provides an opportunity for participants to establish or advance their understanding of research through a critical exploration of research language, ethics, and approaches. The course introduces the language of research, ethical principles and challenges, and the elements of the research process within quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches. Participants will use these theoretical underpinnings to begin to critically review literature relevant to their interests and determine how research findings are useful in the field of their research.

Upon completion of the course, participants should be able to:

• Demonstrate advanced knowledge of applicable research principles and methods
• Appraise and apply the ethical principles and ethical challenges of research
• Critically evaluate and present research approaches and methods suited to the topic
• Determine how research methods, techniques, and skills can be used to address particular research questions
• Evaluate a wide range of methodological approaches in social research
• Synthesize and comment critically on a body of research

• Contemporary issues and debates in research
• Theories/paradigms of research
• Developing a research question/hypothesis and a research proposal
• Reviewing literature and the critical analysis of related literature to the researcher
• Designing a conceptual framework for appropriate research 
• Ethics of research
• Critical writing
• Selecting sample
• Difference between secondary and primary data
• Methods of data collection (Quantitative)
• Methods of data collection (Qualitative)
• Data collection
• Regression analysis using Excel
• Methods of Data Collection (Qualitative)
• Presentation, analysis, and interpretation of data
• Writing conclusions and recommendations