SW0518 - Critical Research Enquiry

You will learn through lectures, seminar tutors or student-led seminars, peer group and collaborative learning, independent and self-directed study and library based work.

We will identify a range of tasks for you to complete week to week. Sometimes these are learning activities to bring with you for the next seminar, sometimes learning to undertake for the next session. These are focussed tasks aimed to help you to work towards the summative task for this module.

You will be supported in a variety of ways during the lectures and seminars. These will include feedback from tutors and peer groups during the lectures and seminars. In addition, the module leader and seminar tutors will respond to questions, preferably via the module’s discussion board at the University’s eLearning Portal so that the whole group can benefit.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. The reading list for this module can be found at: http://readinglists.northumbria.ac.uk

Knowledge & Understanding:

• Demonstrate an understanding of key issues in research and knowledge generation, including the ethical obligations of the researcher

• Describe and explore the current state of knowledge about a relevant topic

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:

• Prepare to make decisions through the identification and gathering of information from more than one source and, with support, question the reliability and validity of this information

• Consider how evidence may be used to inform judgement and decisions in practice situations

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

• Recognise the importance of applying imagination, creativity and curiosity to practice

Summative assessment
1500-word research proposal (research project). The proposal could be for a quantitative, qualitative or mixed-methods project. The topic of your project should be suitable both in scale and relevance to a newly qualified social work practitioner and researcher. A suggested structure for the proposal will be outlined.

Formative assessment
Your formative assessment is a verbal presentation of your research proposal to the rest of your seminar group and tutor. You will receive verbal feedback from your peers and your tutor which will help your preparations for your summative assessment.

SW0417, SW0418, SW0419, SW0420, SW0421, SW0422

SW0514, SW0515, SW0516, SW0517

This module builds on learning from the Year 1 ‘Academic Skills and Critical Reflection’ module, towards a deeper understanding of knowledge construction by way of understanding the research process, and alongside this, further developing your ability to appraise the quality of different forms of evidence. The curriculum will therefore focus on research methodologies and different elements of the social work research process. The module tutors and research expert guest lecturers will share with you their experiences of doing research and will help you gain the skills and motivation for you to start to “think as a researcher”. The assignments will invite you to design a research project on a topic of your interest suitable both in scale and relevance to a newly qualified social work practitioner and researcher, with the potential of being realised in your future employment or academic pathways.