When you are assigned a research paper, you will spend many hours searching the library and the Internet for materials relevant to your topic. It is important to develop a system to organize and save the information you wish to use for your paper. After completing this interactive tutorial you will be able to create a research log to organize and save the information from a web site. This flash tutorial requires a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 or higher.

This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of having students reflect upon their experiences of learning and use of critical thinking in their first year of study at University. Specifically, it responds to the debate on whether teaching a general course on critical thinking skills constitutes a 'syntax or semantic' for the students. McPeck (1990) initiated this debate, claiming that teaching general courses on critical thinking skills do not improve students' processes of reasoning. He believes that such courses are not meaningful to students and their learning, stating that the thinking skills the students require, must instead be derived directly from the subjects that they are studying. Educators such as Paul (1991; Siegel 1990) disagree with McPeck and argue that these courses improve students' reasoning processes at University level. In responding to this debate, I designed an introductory critical thinking skills course entitled the <em>Process of Learning</em>. This course was implemented with first year students enrolled on a design and media management course at a University in the United Kingdom. This case study was evaluated using an action research methodology. The findings of this research are discussed within the framework of student learning theory and the learning environment. The data includes student and staff interviews conducted over 18 months, triangulated findings from the course sessions and analysis of related assignments. This research found that students can benefit from first year introductory critical thinking courses in several ways. Students become sensitised or aware of the critical thinking skills that they use in first year. The subsequent application of these skills can lead to improvement in learning quality outcomes in subsequent studies. Students with a higher level of competency discuss these thinking skills more coherently and recognise their personal responsibility in learning. Students achieve insights into their own personal perception of learning and begin to assess objectively the implications of what they have learnt from this. Wide ranging feedback from students discussing critical thinking skills and learning activities can provide a medium for staff committed to improving both pedagogy and the curriculum. Better understanding of critical thinking skills can improve the students' confidence in learning. Further insights are presented in this research that help us to further understand the nature of `confidence' in learning. Students identified a number of difficulties with the <em>Process of Learning</em>. This would appear initially to support McPeck's belief that such courses arc not helpful to students in the first year of study. However, four key findings are presented in this thesis which explain why these difficulties arose. Consequently, this research supports educators who advocate the teaching of general critical thinking skills courses in higher education, due to the benefits for students and staff. It concludes that the 'syntax versus semantic' dichotomy is an oversimplification of the debate and explains why this is so. Finally, suggestions are made for future research directed at integrating critical thinking skills courses across the degree level at University.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study investigated scholarly communication guidance as a core service by the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, academic library to doctoral students, research and scholarly communication needs and skills of doctoral students and effective dissemination of research findings by doctoral students for national development. The study also explored the adoption of a research portal as part of the academic library website for scholarly communication guidance to doctoral students. A case study research design with KNUST as research site, with a mixed method approach was used. Semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, documentary analysis and a bibliometric survey of an institutional repository were employed as data gathering tools. A scholarly communication guidance model based on Costa’s proposed adaption of Garvey and Griffin’s models of scholarly communication, Wilson’s information behaviour model and Bjôrk’s scholarly communication lifecycle model was developed to frame the study.

Yes / `Research Seminar Series¿ is a 10-credit, Level M module offered to MSc/MEng students undertaking programmes in the areas of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Bradford. The module¿s aims are twofold: i) to disseminate stateoftheart information that could form the basis for future research programmes¿ and ii) to introduce the stages involved in the preparation and presentation of a research paper. / Higher Education Academy

Upon completion of this tutorial, you will be able to find information on the Internet and create a research log to organize and save the information for your paper.

Background – Enhanced social research interviews seek to engage interviewees in extended conversation-like dialogues where they are empowered to produce output by discussing themes of relevance to them. Photos, videos, vignettes and other enhancing tools have been used before in social sciences research interviews to contextualise the interview interaction. Initial Assumption – Sacred texts (such as excerpts from the Bible and the Quran) enjoy some features that make them potential tools to enhance research interviews. This study set out to answer the Research Question: ‘What are the benefits and challenges of using sacred texts as tools to enhance social research interviews?’ Methodology – Selected Biblical and Quranic verses were used in three sets each, to start social discussions with fifteen Christian and thirteen Muslim participants, respectively, in semi-structured interviews. Findings – The findings of this empirical study show that using sacred texts was perceived favourably by the participants, enhanced the dynamics of the interviews and provided a platform to produce data that are rich, varied and nuanced. Conclusion – This research points out the usefulness of sacred texts – as enhancing tools – when used in social research interviews to produce natural conversations that, in turn, lead to rich, nuanced data. This suggests that sacred texts can be added to the qualitative research interview-enhancing toolbox especially with exploratory studies that are open for emerging themes during interview settings. Research areas where sacred texts can be used in interviews include: ethics, social relations, gender roles, psychology, moral choices, cultural studies and spirituality, among other social sciences disciplines. Researchers as well as participants will be expected to have a degree of familiarity with the sacred book or texts to make both interviewers and interviewees interested enough in discussing it in an open and respectful setting.

This PhD research by project is for designers investigating relations between culture and design through an experiential perspective of Chi- nese culture in terms of developing a new understanding of ‘Chineseness’. ‘Chineseness’ in my work, can be re-mapped as a form of communication that deals with Chinese culture in design. It is not just along with historical stereotypes, nor a remote copy of other countries’ successful cultural trans- fers, but rather should be inseparable from the radical social phenomena and design culture already emerging within contemporary China. Through a series of design projects, my research is ultimately allowing Chineseness to be less implied and instead, to be made manifest, in terms of what behav- iours over symbolism and decoration. New knowledge is articulated through exploring my understanding and its shifts during my approach to re-map Chinese cultural elements in design and search for the meaning of ‘Chineseness’. This research remarks the stereotypes, generalisations and categorisations when designers deal with cross-cultural design from both non-Chinese and Chinese angles. The thesis comprises three parts. The first part is a contextual review of cultural elements and appropriate methods. The second part explores a systematic approach to reflecting Chineseness from various cultural an- gles. These action-research method-led projects describe three ways of ex- ploring the transfer of Chinese culture into design: symbolic, behavioural and political/philosophical. They culminate in an enabling developmental structure through which designers can deal with Chinese cultural com- plexity in design. The third part sees two final projects that reflect back and re-evaluate what Chineseness could be. The thesis contributes a three-layer structure that reflects Chinese cultural elements into design through meth- ods and analysis of values in practice. Additionally, for the readers sympa- thetic with a systematic design approach or cultural identitarianism, this work addresses a view of critical understanding for facing Chinese culture in design.

The aim of this qualitative study was to explore research assistants&rsquo / opinions regarding the courses they take during their graduate study in terms of improving their science perception and research skills. The research questions include research assistants&rsquo / assessments about the effectiveness of graduate courses on research skills and science perception, their evaluation of the graduate programs in terms of improving science perception, and their suggestions on the improvement of the quality of the graduate program regarding science perception and research skills. The sample for the present study contains 12 interviewees from four different v institutes of Middle East Technical University. The interviewees are all PhD candidates at METU. The sample was chosen by using purposive sampling. In this study, the data collection instrument was a semi-structured interview guide designed by the researcher. There were 8 main questions and 9 sub-questions. The collected data was analyzed through content analysis. The results of the study are presented under four main themes, which were derived from the research questions. First theme was the assessment of research skills which was about usefulness of courses, competence about research methods, reasons for not taking courses, problems because of not taking them. The second theme was the assessment of science perception which was about contributions of courses, reasons for not taking courses. The third theme was the evaluation of the graduate programs which consisted of should-be-developed and positive aspects. The last theme was about suggestions which could be realized by university administration and by personal efforts. In conclusion, the findings revealed that the research assistants are aware of the importance of research methods course for enhancing research skills, and of effectiveness of history and philosophy of science course regarding the improving of science perception. In this respect, based on literature review and the research assistants&rsquo / views it is suggested that history and philosophy of science course utilizing explicitly-reflective inquiry approach should be included curriculum of graduate programs.

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The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between statistics self-efficacy, statistics anxiety, and performance in introductory graduate statistics courses. The study design compared two statistics self-efficacy measures developed by Finney and Schraw (2003), a statistics anxiety measure developed by Cruise and Wilkins (1980), and a course performance measure. To view self-efficacy from two perspectives, the Current Statistics Self-Efficacy (CSSE) assessed student confidence in their ability to complete specific statistics tasks in the present, whereas Self-Efficacy to Learn Statistics (SELS) assessed student confidence in their ability to learn statistics in the future. The performance measure was the combined average of the midterm and final exam scores only, excluding grades from other course activities. The instruments were distributed to four sections of an introductory graduate statistics course (N=88) in a College of Education at a large metropolitan university during the first week of the semester during Fall 2009 and Spring 2010. Both of the statistics self-efficacy measures revealed a low to moderate inverse relationship with statistics anxiety and a low to moderate direct relationship with each other. In this study there was no correlation between statistics anxiety (CSCS), statistics self-efficacy (CSSE and SELS), and course performance. There was high internal reliability for each instrument's items making the instruments suitable for use with graduate students. However, none of the instruments' results were significant in relation to course performance with graduate students in this sample. Unlike prior research involving undergraduate-level statistic students that has reported a relationship between the CSSE and SELS, the present study, involving graduate students, did not find any significant correlation with performance. Additional research is suggested to investigate the reasons for the differences between the studies.