This module aims to help students develop essential learning skills, develop critical thinking skills, develop academic writing skills, understand the principles of research design in relation to TESOL and Applied Linguistics, become familiar with appropriate research methodology, understand the importance and procedures of ethical conduct of research projects, design research projects and write MA dissertations.

(LO1) Students will demonstrate skills in managing learning resources

(LO2) Students will demonstrate skills in writing academic essays

(LO3) Students will demonstrate critical thinking skills in reviewing academic articles

(LO4) Students will reflect critically on existing research in relevant fields

(LO5) Students will demonstrate familiarity with and understanding of a range of relevant literature

(LO6) Students will choose appropriate research methods

(S1) Ethical awareness

(S2) Teamwork

(S3) Communicating research skills

(S4) Critical thinking skills

(S5) Search and management skills of internet resources

(S6) Quantitative data analysis skills

(S7) Research project design skills

The ten weekly sessions typically include:

Week 1: managing learning resources (i.e. available learning resources, library information and resource management skills). Students will be asked to bring their laptops in class to participate in hands on activities. A liaison librarian will be invited to introduce library information.

Week 2: writing assignments (i.e. action plans of writing assignments, structure of assignments, academic style and language use). Students will be asked to work on a number of worksheets individually or in a group after lectures.

Week 3: critical thinking skills (i.e. critique academic articles, avoid plagiarism and reference format). Students will be asked to read one of the provided articles before sessions outside class and work on a number of worksheets in class either individually or collaboratively.

Week 4: Planning research. Students will be introduced to the common procedure of planning a research project involving; choose a research topic, pose research question, conduct literature review, choose research methods, pilot research methods, collecting and analysing data, report findings and ethics considerations. The emphasis will be put on how to achieve coherence between these aspects. Details of each aspect will be discussed in the following sessions. Students will be invited to discuss activities involved in each step.

Week 5: Quantitative research methods (i.e. questionnaire design, pilot questionnaire, analyse questionnaire data, quantitative data analysis and ethics considerations in using questionnaires). Students will be invited to write and try out questionnaire questions, reflect on questionnaires by previous students and try out quantitative data analysis in Excel and SPSS.

Week 6: Qualitative research methods (i.e. interviews, classroom observation, discourse analysis, qualitative data analysis and ethics considerations in qualitative research methods) Students will be introduced to different qualitative research methods and their awareness of ethics considerations corresponding to each method will be raised. They will also be invited to write interview questions, work on observation sheets, and conduct discourse analysis of raw data.

Week 7: Ethics guidance (i.e. concept of ethics, importance of ethics, consent form, anonymity and confidentiality, data usage and storage and ethics clearance at Liverpool). Students will be introduced to ethics guidance based on templates and guidance which was created for the last cohort of students' dissertation projects. Examples of misconduct will be discussed.

Week 8: Evaluating research projects (i.e. evaluate quantitative and qualitative research projects in terms of validity, reliability and other related concepts). Students will collaboratively work on a project using the relevant concepts.

Week 9: Communicate research (i.e. present research and report research). Students will be provided with the guidance on oral presentation of research projects and writing up dissertations. They will be asked to work on a number of worksheets consisting of common errors made by previous students.

Week 10: Wrap up sessions (i.e. summarise weekly sessions and course work guidance). Students will be asked to review content covered by previous weeks. They will be introduced to the assessment criteria.

This module will be delivered by weekly 1-hour whole-cohort workshops and weekly 1-hour seminars of no more than 25 students. The majority of teaching will be delivered face to face on campus. Online delivery will be used to complement the on-campus delivery and where technology affords a better learning experience.