BMS5001 - Introduction to research and research methodology - 2017

This first semester unit of the Masters in Biomedical and Health Sciences degree aims to teach students essential skills in Research communication and writing; Biostatistics; and Research ethics and management. Overall, this unit is designed to teach students how research is conducted in an ethical manner, how research data is managed and analysed, how rational decisions are made through teamwork and how research can be communicated. It will be taught through three parallel streams (modules) of study: (a) Communications skills module on skills for written, oral and visual communications and the use of resources to facilitate communications such as the library and data archival systems; (b) Biostatistics module on research design and methodology, and the use of statistics and data analysis; and (c) Research ethics and management module on rational decision-making processes applied to managing research/industry projects and understanding the legal and ethical environment in which research is conducted.

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

1. Effectively communicate in either writing, orally or visually the basis of the scientific method from building a hypothesis, to testing the ideas through experimental methods;
2. Identify the different types of research designs used in the biomedical sciences and justify the use of specific research designs to address specific research questions;
3. Describe the different forms of statistical methods and analyses used in biomedical sciences and appraise the appropriate method to be applied to interpret different types of data;
4. Articulate the ethical principles that inform professional integrity behaviour in the conduct of scientific research and judge the application of these principles in case studies of research integrity violations;
5. Analyse the ethical principles that inform the formulation of a scientific research question and the conduct of research to address that question;
6. Evaluate critically and rate the quality of oral scientific communications in a range of biomedical science disciplines;
7. Analyse and effectively communicate, in written and oral formats, complex research integrity concepts through the evaluation of cases;
8. Appraise the various factors impacting on the commercial success of a simulated company and work collaboratively and collegially to make decisions on the allocation of financial and other resources to impact on this success.

• 5 x Fortnightly written critiques of School seminars (300 words) (In pairs) (15%)
• Written report on a scientific topic (1,500 words) (Individual) (10%)
• End of semester abstract exam (2 hours) (10%)
• 10 x Weekly in-class tasks (In pairs) (2% each = 20%)
• End of semester written exam on statistics (2 hours) (15%)
• Poster (<1,000 words) (In trios) (10%)
• Oral presentation (15 minutes) (In trios) (10%)
• Peer assessment (10%)

On-campus: 12 hours of contact per week + 12 hours of self-directed study.

See also Unit timetable information

Professor Ramesh Rajan

Biomedical science