Orientation and Follow-up Seminar I (Dissertation)

Objectives

This curriculum unit aims to assist students in the design and development of their research work. The work carried out in the curriculum unit will focus on the research stages of project design, exploration of the problem and planning of the empirical study. Therefore, at the end of the semester, the student should be able to:

1. Design a research project, presenting and adequately justifying a research problem and properly writing research questions

2. Explore the research problem through complementary strategies, including a review of the literature and, whenever necessary and possible, direct observation of the context of study, interviews with key informants and/or analysis of documents

3. Develop an analytic model

4. Plan an empirical study, including the selection of the contexts to investigate, the definition of a sampling process and the choice (or construction) of the data collection instruments to be used

Program

1. Definition of the research problem

2. Definition of research questions

3. Development of the research problem

4. Analytic model

5. Data collection plan (contexts, participants, instruments)

Teaching Methodologies

The methodology will focus on the active role of the student in identifying and solving problems related to his or her dissertation work. All activities to be carried out are based on an applied approach. The themes chosen for these activities will be oriented to the training, evaluation and improvement and of students’ research skills and will result from the teachers’ diagnosis of students’ learning needs and interests. The work will build on the research activities carried out by the students as part of their research projects and on their analysis and discussion.

Bibliography

Anderson, G. (1990). Fundamentals of educational research. London: The Falmer Press.

Bogdan, R., & Biklen, S. (1994). Investigação qualitativa em educação: uma introdução à teoria e aos métodos. Porto: Porto Editora.

Foddy, W. (2002). Como perguntar: teoria e prática da construção de perguntas em entrevistas e questionários. Oeiras: Celta.

Ghiglione, R., & Matalon, B. (1997). O inquérito: teoria e prática. Oeiras: Celta Editora.

Hill, M. M., & Hill, A. (2000). Investigação por questionário. Lisboa: Edições Sílabo.

Lima, J. Á., & Pacheco, J. A. (2006). Fazer investigação. Porto: Porto Editora.

Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Quivy, R., & Campenhoudt, L. V. (1998). Manual de investigação em ciências sociais. Lisboa: Gradiva.