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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Understanding Research Methods by University of London

4.6
stars
8,069 ratings

About the Course

This MOOC is about demystifying research and research methods. It will outline the fundamentals of doing research, aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at the postgraduate level. It places the student experience at the centre of our endeavours by engaging learners in a range of robust and challenging discussions and exercises befitting SOAS, University of London's status as a research-intensive university and its rich research heritage. The course will appeal to those of you who require an understanding of research approaches and skills, and importantly an ability to deploy them in your studies or in your professional lives. In particular, this course will aid those of you who have to conduct research as part of your postgraduate studies but do not perhaps have access to research methods courses, or for those of you who feel you would like additional support for self-improvement. No prior knowledge or experience in research is required to take this course and as such, the course is for everyone. This MOOC draws on a wealth of existing course material developed to support research training across SOAS, University of London and particularly drawing from the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD). In 2015, the course was nominated for the prestigious Guardian University Award for its innovative approach to online learning. Participation in or completion of this online course will not confer academic credit for University of London programmes...

Top reviews

RP

May 1, 2020

The course was very simple and easily understandable. The assignments were very interesting. The peer review activity provided scope to learn from the others too. It was a great learning experience.

A

Jul 27, 2017

This is wonderful course especially for research scholars, one suggestion is instead of giving articles from books, please provide a PPT which will be more effective ! thank you for wonderful session.

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2401 - 2425 of 2,555 Reviews for Understanding Research Methods

By Daniel F L G

Jul 4, 2020

The teachers, as well as the way it is taught, are very innovative and integral. The main issue I had while learning was the social research focus it has. They should be more clear about it in the preview of the course.

By Rakesh K S

Apr 17, 2020

I very much appreciated and enjoyed the course as well as i'm utterly grateful for giving me such an opportunity.Thank you so much.Hope the knowledge i achieved from the course that will help me in my career.

By Sanika N

Jun 27, 2020

Nice way to teach people on how to go about a research in the initial phase. Very simple and basics steps were explained through the e-tivities. The reading material provided was also of good content quality.

By Nicolás P A

Jul 6, 2018

Los textos y evaluaciones del curso son muy relevantes y ayudan a alcanzar el objetivo de aprender sobre Research Methods.Los videos no son muy coherentes con las lecturas.Recomiendo el curso por los textos.

By Lawrence J M

Oct 27, 2015

The overall premise of the course is strong. Although I found the instructors and guest speakers extremely knowledgeable, quite a bit of the material was repetitive within in each week's video clip content.

By solene c

Oct 19, 2021

i thought that the content of the videos could have helped the students more to grasps what a research is about and have some tips from profesionals. the documents provided were very interesting. thank you

By mohsen g

Mar 17, 2020

The books introduced in the course were great and helped me to expand my perspective about doing research. But Interviews seemed a little sporadic to me, and I didn't manage to build a connection with them.

By Afifa A

Aug 27, 2020

very good course. The last e-activity was proposal preparation. It will be good if they add something about sampling in reading materials. Very good experience for me.....I will recommend this course

By Saravana K T

May 7, 2020

This course is covering basics. This course needs to have a strong mechanism in reviewing the answers of the candidate. It is very good learning for me to build a basic foundation for the research.

By Duaa E a

Feb 11, 2025

The course is really good and offers very good resources, but for me as a beginner in the field of research it was a bit shorter than I expected and it did not contain enough details.

By Ngọc M T N

Oct 20, 2020

wow! what a useless course i have ever enjoyed! in the end, this is because most of the knowledge for me is easy and I knew all of them. But thank you for offering me a free course.

By LADDEN D N U

Oct 15, 2020

please improve the e-tivity no. 3, so with its instructions, please make it clear and concise. but as an overall judgement, it's a nice experience and a very informative course.

By Arsalan A

Mar 28, 2017

The course is very basic, it should have more in depth topics or maybe it should be within a specialization of a complete research methodology, but thanks, this is a great help.

By Pooja G

Jan 21, 2016

Came to know some basic research strategies. Enjoyed the assignments. Good course, catered for grad students but Undergrads can also benefit from the Reading material provided.

By Muhammad N A

May 29, 2020

It's very basic and discussion type course, you will not be instructed for any research method actually, it's just some discussion of few professors about research methods

By Waddah A

Feb 9, 2020

It is a good course but should focus more on writing a research proposal as well as the peer-graded assignments should have more factors to depend on while reviewing

By Ahmed K

Feb 24, 2023

I think this course was good. However, the format needs to be further improved. More contents should be covered. This course should have been more comprehensive.

By Jack E M

May 8, 2018

A bit simplistic but useful refresher for understanding research methods. For a more thorough exploration of methodology I might suggest another course.

By Azan M

Jan 17, 2025

Beginner friendly and informative but relies on reading material to deliver the key content instead of audiovisual methods which should be used more.

By Simone S

Jul 17, 2024

I needed even one feedback from the facilitators, as the only feedback came from peers who were also learning. Otherwise the content was good

By Hasan K i

Oct 19, 2024

It was a useful course, but I hope there were more videos and explanations. Generally, I'm so glad to have finished this course. Thank you!

By Mahdi F

Jun 16, 2023

It was a good course, but it seems that it is more suitable for those who are just starting to learn, to get to know the research method.

By Paul O

Feb 25, 2022

As a peer reviewed course, I found many of the 'peers' that I reviewed were not serious attempts at addressing the assignments.

By Charlotte B

Mar 25, 2024

I wholeheartedly support the peer-based reviewing; however, I would have liked an assignment that would have been graded.

By Touka

Aug 17, 2017

I wish to know more especially it'd have been better if you had expalined the papers of week 3 in the videos thanks a lot