Undergraduate - UnitPHH4201 - Public health research report

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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24 points, SCA Band 2, 0.500 EFTSL

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

Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Organisational Unit	South Africa School of Health Sciences
Offered	South Africa Second semester 2015 (Day) South Africa Second semester 2015 (Off-campus)
Coordinator(s)	Professor Geoffrey Setswe

Synopsis

This unit aims to develop students' understanding and skills in writing a research report in public health. The unit introduces students to the skills preparing an introduction, literature review, choice of research methods, findings and discussion of these findings, conclusions and recommendations. It provides direction and guidance in identifying a meaningful research question and in developing the skills and knowledge needed to design and write a research report using reputable referencing techniques. It reintroduces students to quantitative and qualitative research frameworks and data analysis techniques needed both to undertake the study and to write a public health research report.

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

Produce a research report to meet the standard required at honours level;
Develop an outline and plan of a research process suitable for the research project;
Formulate an introduction that clearly explains the structure and purpose of the study;
Justify a choice of quantitative and/or qualitative research methods used in the study:

Describe the study design used
Describe methods of data collection used
Describe data analysis approach used
Describe measures used to protect research subjects

Demonstrate skills in data analysis and reporting on findings;
Link research findings with literature review in a discussion section;
Draw conclusions and make recommendations from the study.

Fieldwork

Students may be allocated to visit a community site on a fieldwork to learn methods of community entry and how to conduct research fieldwork in different communities. This will be a supervised fieldwork visit done with the lecturer/researcher.

Assessment

Assignment (20%)
Class presentation (20%)
Research report (60%)

Workload requirements

Seminar and/or online learning activity (3 hours).

Chief examiner(s)

Professor Geoffrey Setswe

Off-campus attendance requirements

+ Self-directed learning activity (6 hours) - data collection, analysis
+ Preparation of research report (5 hour)
+ Unit assessment / assignment (6 hours).