Scientific Research Methods and Applied Statistics ENGI 3215

Course description:

This course is designed to introduce the students to a variety of topics related to the scientific research, including: research types, components, methods, writing requirements, and data presentation. The student will be trained on developing a research question and objectives that are based literature review. The course will include the right approaches for describing data, discussing results, and following the evidence to develop conclusions that are free from speculations and incoherent theories. Part of the course will be focused on structuring of thesis and following the standard writing techniques. The second part will be offered in the lab, which will be focused on teaching applied statistics principles using SPSS. This part of the course involves details of several sampling designs, different measurement and scaling techniques and multidimensional scaling. It will study processing and analysis of data. Sampling fundamentals, along with the theory of estimation, parametric tests of hypotheses, and Chi-square test. Case studies are introduced and studied in order to explain the necessity of using the aforementioned statistical analysis techniques.

Course Aims:

  • Students will acquire the necessary skills for designing their own research, choosing the appropriate research methodology, and following the scientific approaches for analysis and presentation of results.

Course outcomes:

Upon completion of this course, the students should be able to:
  •  Follow the scientific approach to explicitly identify the research problem, and to develop the research question and objectives of their own research. 
  •  To select the most appropriate methodology of their own research.
  •  To conduct data analysis and present them in a scientific manner.
  •  To discuss results and to tangibly approach conclusions and recommendations.