| Department of Agricultural Sciences
60 % Forest & Landscape 40 % | |||||||||||||
| Earliest Possible Year | |||||||||||||
| Duration | 1 semester | ||||||||||||
| Credits | 6 (ECTS) | ||||||||||||
| Course Level | MSc | ||||||||||||
| Examination | evaluation of project report Aid allowed Description of Examination: 13-point scale, internal examiner Dates of Exam: Written examination counts for 66% of mark Description of Examination: Compulsory group project counts for 33% of mark | ||||||||||||
| Organisation of Teaching | Lectures: 1 course module per week Exercise and project assignments: 4 hours per week | ||||||||||||
| Block Placement | E7, fall To be agreed upon | ||||||||||||
| Teaching Language | English | ||||||||||||
| Optional Prerequisites | 120611 Basic Statistics | ||||||||||||
| Course Objectives | |||||||||||||
| The aim of the course is to give students essential skills in relation to conducting field research. The course is a compulsory part of the M.Sc. programme Agricultural Development, but is also highly relevant for others interested in research design and methodology. The skills acquired through this course will be useful for research in all agricultural systems (cropping, forest and livestock), and relevant for academic work at all levels, including project and thesis work | |||||||||||||
| Course Contents | |||||||||||||
| Research and development often takes place within highly complex environments involving both hard and soft systems thinking, in which professionals have to be able to plan and act. The complexity includes, for example, the resource efficiency of diverse cropping systems, the influence of decision-making structures in natural resource management on the well being of farmers, or the access to resources like water, agricultural land, fertilizer, pastures and/or forests. This course goes through the research process by designing the research and selecting methods to complement disciplinary skills in order to get the full benefit of subsequent thematic courses, thesis work and post-graduate career. Specifically, the students will have the possibility to acquire knowledge within: - when to select and how to apply introduced methods for collecting and analysing data; - to plan and conduct fieldwork; - to apply selected data collection and analysis techniques (interview, questionnaire and rapid appraisal; and - relating natural resource management to household livelihood strategies. The student will obtain knowledge on: - systems thinking in problem analysis - research processes and design - planning and conducting fieldwork - qualitative data collection methods - quantitative data collection methods - data recording - data quality - data analysis | |||||||||||||
| Teaching And Learning Methods | |||||||||||||
| Lectures introduce the research process, methodologies, data collection methods and case studies, and encourage critical reflection of both research design and selection and application of methods. A compulsory group project design a research study, designing data collection instruments, collecting data and using data analysis tools. Theoretical exercises will support the group project. | |||||||||||||
| Course Litterature | |||||||||||||
| Compendium and lecture notes | |||||||||||||
| Course Coordinator | |||||||||||||
| Error. Person Not Found Error. Person Not Found Henning Høgh Jensen, hhj@life.ku.dk, Department of Agricultural Sciences/Environment, Resources and Technology, Phone: 35333391 | |||||||||||||
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