Becoming a Bioscientist: Experimental Design & Communication - BIO00065I
Module summary
This module will build on skills developed in the earlier āBecoming a Bioscientistā modules, focusing on key skills in investigation and communication in the biosciences. It provides opportunities for students to design and undertake experiments in discipline specific contexts, and will build related/applicable data handling skills allowing for evaluation of their findings. This module will enable students to build their experience of working in teams and communicating science creatively/appropriately to a variety of audiences.
Module will run
Occurrence | Teaching period |
---|---|
A | Semester 1 2024-25 |
Module aims
The aim of the module is to gain experience in experimental design, focusing on how to develop a testable hypothesis and an appropriate research programme to investigate the question, informed by examining/examination of relevant scientific literature. Students will evaluate and interpret their findings by building on data handling skills and statistical approaches from earlier āBecoming a Bioscientistā modules. This module will equip students with the skills and confidence to complete independent research projects in Stage 3 and 4. Working in teams, students will also learn how to communicate science in a variety of ways to a variety/range of audiences, and in doing so will continue to build on their personal development and graduate employability skills.
Module learning outcomes
Students who successfully complete this module will be able to:
Work with others to design and conduct short research project to investigate a biological problem with testable hypotheses
Use relevant techniques to address a research question.
Select statistical models and use R to develop and run reproducible analyses on data in a variety of formats, and present the results graphically
Design and use appropriate media to communicate research to a range of audiences
Indicative assessment
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 80.0 |
Groupwork | 20.0 |
Special assessment rules
None
Indicative reassessment
Task | % of module mark |
---|---|
Essay/coursework | 20.0 |
Essay/coursework | 80.0 |
Module feedback
Marks for all summative assessments will be made available to you and
your supervisor via e:vision. Feedback will be either individual or
cohort-level, depending on the assessment format. You should take the
opportunity to discuss your marks and feedback with your
supervisor.
For exam-style summative assessment, model
answers will be provided for all questions along with cohort-level
feedback indicating how students answered questions in general. Marks
achieved per question will be added to your script.
For
coursework assessments (eg. reports or essays) you will receive
individual feedback on your work. This will usually be in the form of
a feedback sheet that will include suggestions for further
improvement.
During the teaching of the module you will
receive formative feedback that may be at a whole class or individual
level. Such feedback may include: model answers and discussion of
workshop questions, summaries of performance in practicals, VLE-based
quizzes, individual spoken comments during workshops, individual
written comments on formative work.
Indicative reading
These are available through the VLE module site.