BPS1041 - Scientific Inquiry - 2018

Students will acquire basic skills in applying and interpreting the scientific method of inquiry, and interpreting scientific data. Students will: i) evaluate scientific literature; and, ii) plan, conduct and interpret a simple scientific experiment. A knowledge of hypothesis testing, ethical principles of scientific practice, examples of poor and elite pharmaceutical science, and the skills to perform inferential statistics will be developed.

At the end of this unit students will be able to:

1. Explain the principles of scientific inquiry
2. Identify safe and ethical practices in scientific research
3. Develop a conceptual model for scientific inquiry and evaluate two real-world examples using this model
4. Plan and conduct a simple scientific experiment using a learner defined conceptual model of hypothesis testing
5. Identify and employ an appropriate statistical test for the empirically obtained data
6. Re-evaluate a tested hypothesis on the basis of the research findings.

Final exam (2 hour): 50%; Assignments 45%; in-class assessment 5%

Contact hours for on-campus students:

• A minimum of twenty four 1-hour lectures
• A minimum of nine hours of tutorials

See also Unit timetable information