Content, progress and pedagogy of the module

Objectives

• to provide students with additional factual and theoretical knowledge within the subject areas of the modules of the third semester
• to give them the opportunity to reflect critically on theories and their usability in particular contexts
• to gain experience with empirical data collection and reflect on this process
• to gather experience in working in an interdisciplinary team of people with different competences and cultural backgrounds
• to practice discussing controversial issues while respecting other people’s opinions
• to gain experience in collecting large quantities of data and information and processing it in order to solve a particular problem
• to practise academic writing
• to learn how to complete a project within a set deadline.

Contents

Students will choose a problem within the modules of the third semester and work on it independently in groups of minimum two students. The University provides academic supervision. Students must discuss various theories and select one or several, which they believe to be relevant. Students must discuss which type of empirical data might be relevant in this context and organise the data collection. The topic of the project must be formulated as a problem, and students must seek to answer this problem. The answer must be based on theoretical reflection and  be empirically grounded using skills obtained from working within problem based learning the past two semesters. Purely descriptive projects are not acceptable.
 

Learning objectives

Knowledge

• possess additional factual knowledge of theories and practices within the subject areas covered in the modules of the third semester and can reflect on these on a scientific basis
• possess further knowledge and understanding of the themes within these fields and various approaches to the study of these.

Skills

• can apply their knowledge to select theories that serve the analytical purpose and at the same time remain critical to these theories.
• can collect empirical data systematically in order to solve a problem within the modules of the third semester and reflect critically on this process
• can integrate theory and empirical data on an interdisciplinary basis
• can communicate in written and spoken academic English.

Competences

• can reflect and argue on the basis of scientific knowledge
• can work purposely on an answer to a given problem and within a set deadline
• can work in a team of people with different competences and cultural backgrounds.

Type of instruction

The module consists of the written student project.

Exam

Exams