Undergraduate - UnitATS4776 - Seminar in geography

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2015 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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12 points, SCA Band 2, 0.250 EFTSL

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Science
Organisational Unit	School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment
Offered	Clayton First semester 2015 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Associate Professor David Dunkerley

Synopsis

This seminar unit provides a broad introduction to research and the research process for Honours students. It introduces project formulation and design; data weaknesses and strengths; research methodology; and the varieties of research challenges and potentials in Geography and Environmental Science. The unit emphasizes the dynamics and diversity of theoretical approaches underlying key academic debates in geography and focuses on methodology rather than specific methods and sources for doing interdisciplinary research and applications for addressing geographical and environmental problems.

Outcomes

Students who successfully complete this unit will have developed the following key competencies and capacities. You will be able to:

Critically evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a range of relevant honours theses, using a standard set of evaluation criteria and apply the latter to your own work;
Develop an appropriate thesis structure for your own work;
Identify ethical approaches to research;
Identify and explain key epistemological traditions in geographical research;
Situate and justify the research for your thesis within this context.

Assessment

Within semester assessment: 70%
Exam: 30%

Workload requirements

Minimum total expected workload to achieve the learning outcomes for this unit is 288 hours per semester typically comprising a mixture of scheduled learning activities and independent study. A unit requires on average three/four hours of scheduled activities per week. Scheduled activities may include a combination of teacher directed learning, peer directed learning and online engagement.

Chief examiner(s)

Associate Professor David Dunkerley