RESEARCH METHODS 2 - 2020/1

Module Overview

The modules provides general tools for undertaking research in Economics.
It is structured in three main parts. First, it provides overviews of programming, such as in Stata, Matlab and R. Second, faculty will present their current research and frontier topics in their field of economics. Third, students will participate in reading groups to discuss journal articles that relate to the fields of economics students will present/research in.

Module provider

Economics

Module Leader

CORRADI Valentina (Economics)

Number of Credits: 15

ECTS Credits: 7.5

Framework: FHEQ Level 7

Module cap (Maximum number of students): N/A

Module Availability

Semester 2

Prerequisites / Co-requisites

None

Module content

Indicative content includes:

• Overviews of programming, such as Stata, Matlab and R

• How to construct a literature review

• How to organise a research paper, and linking this to the research proposal

• Frontier topics in Microeconomics (theory and applied), Macroeconomics (theory and applied) and Econometrics, relating to the research of faculty in the School of Economics, and related reading therein.

Assessment pattern

Alternative Assessment

None

Assessment Strategy

The assessment strategy is designed to provide students with the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to summarise and critically discuss literature in top peer reviewed journals, and identify a suitable research question and structure a proposal to engage with this question.

Thus, the summative assessment for this module consists of:

• Individual presentation (30 minutes) in Week 11

• Individual research proposal (3000 words) to be handed in one week before the presentation

Formative assessment

Class participation and discussion.

Feedback

Students will receive verbal feedback on their individual oral presentation and written feedback on their submitted research proposal.

Module aims

• The module aims to develop students’ independent research skills. In particular, to provide general transferable skills on writing a research paper. At the end of the module students should be able to write a research proposal for their MRes dissertation.

Learning outcomes

Methods of Teaching / Learning

The learning and teaching strategy is designed to:

Introduce students to academic research in economics and enable them to interpret, reproduce and discuss economic journal articles in top general or top field economics journals.

The learning and teaching methods include:

Interactive weekly small group lectures and tutorials/labs designed to enable students to engage with frontier topics in economics, identify a research question and structure an economics paper.

Indicated Lecture Hours (which may also include seminars, tutorials, workshops and other contact time) are approximate and may include in-class tests where one or more of these are an assessment on the module. In-class tests are scheduled/organised separately to taught content and will be published on to student personal timetables, where they apply to taken modules, as soon as they are finalised by central administration. This will usually be after the initial publication of the teaching timetable for the relevant semester.

Reading list

https://readinglists.surrey.ac.uk
Upon accessing the reading list, please search for the module using the module code: ECOM067

Other information

None

Programmes this module appears in

Please note that the information detailed within this record is accurate at the time of publishing and may be subject to change. This record contains information for the most up to date version of the programme / module for the 2020/1 academic year.