The "alternative" methodological approach that I discuss in this paper is one that I suggest can be employed for exploring higher degree research student "becoming," that is, for exploring the relationship between learning, writing and identity or subject formation. This approach is informed by an unlikely amalgam of…

Undergraduate research projects in the life sciences encompass a broad range of studies, some of which may require the participation of human subjects or other activities which may raise ethical concerns. As universities are accountable for all projects undertaken under their auspices they must ensure that these projects adhere to legal…

Undergraduate students have a complex and often problematic history of representation in research on writing pedagogy. They have been described as novices and outsiders, while having minimal input into how they are studied and represented. In this piece, I share my efforts to rethink the roles and relationships among researchers and student…

This paper assesses the experience of undergraduate students using mobile devices and a commercial application, iSurvey, to conduct a neighborhood survey. Mobile devices offer benefits for enhancing student learning and engagement. This field exercise created the opportunity for classroom discussions on the practicalities of urban research, the…

The specifics of how research competencies should be taught in social work curricula vary. This study explored requirements for student research projects and program director attitudes toward research education using the responses from 201 BSW and MSW programs to a 48-item survey. A majority of the respondents' programs require students to…

This paper presents a reflective narrative of the process of designing a PhD project. Using the analogy of the play "One Man, Two Guvnors," this paper discusses the tensions a beginning researcher faces in reconciling her own vision for a project with the academic demands of doctoral-level study. Focusing on an ethnographic study of a reading…

Scholarship on teaching undergraduates increasingly emphasizes the benefits of providing students with an active role in their education whereby instructors are more aptly described as facilitators of knowledge rather than merely providers of it. Additionally, recommendations from the American Sociological Association aimed specifically at the…

By using a quasi-experimental design, in this study, we test the effect of undergraduate teaching assistants on student learning. Data were collected from 170 students enrolled in four sections of a quantitative research methods course, two sections without undergraduate teaching assistants and two sections with undergraduate teaching assistants,…

How undergraduate students learn research methods in geography has been understudied. Existing work has focused on course description from the instructor's perspective. This study, however, uses a grounded theory approach to allow students' voices to shape a new theory of how they themselves say that they learn research methods. Data from two…

In this paper, the author first places story telling in context within the broad range of effort associated with case study methods. Then, the author discusses aspects of fieldwork which underlie story telling, first moves, key questions, tricks, listening, looking and synthesis. The author concludes with evaluative criteria for story telling and…

When a college professor who teaches research methods to graduate education students was approached by a local public urban elementary school to help them teach research skills to 4th-graders, it was thought that the process would be simple--take what we did at the college level and differentiate it for the childhood classroom. This article will…

This article examines the experiences of final year undergraduate sociology students enrolled in an internship course where they researched a local community project, mostly in small groups, for a client. A sociology lecturer supervised their projects. Course-related outcomes were assessed using conventional university procedures but a research…

This paper puts forward a set of criteria for ensuring trustworthiness in design research studies undertaken by Higher Degree Research (HDR) students. Design research is aimed at exploring educational problems and refining theory and practice by defining a pedagogical outcome and is a methodological approach often associated with the Learning…

This article addresses research preparation for graduate students. A major assumption is that preparation needs to be differentiated based on a student's goals. Since this is a personal proposal for research preparation, based on experience and the literature, I begin the article providing my perspective since that frames what follows. The next…

In this article, the authors describe how an examination of teacher candidate inquiry projects led to an examination of their own experiences as teacher education practitioner-researchers and competing narratives about education research. They describe how in the process of doing research, they came to recognise how their experiences and…