General
Introductory Video
Topic outline
Introduction – Project work: Clarifying the basics
- Summarise your own project-work experiences
- Identify and describe the key attributes of project work in general, and in a formal education context in particular.
- Specify the type of project that will be the focus of study in this course.
- Clarify and plan for your role as the one responsible for your own assessment in the course.
Unit 1 - The project as a vehicle for problem solving
- Differentiate the project as a problem-solving tool from other types of projects.
- Identify and describe the key attributes of the problem-solving approach to project work.
- Clarify your understanding of the term ‘problem’ and identify other terms that share a similar meaning.
- Differentiate between everyday understandings of problem-solving and those that apply in the project-work context.
- Convert your initial problem idea into a question.
- Use the question to build the problem statement.
- Identify and describe the key features of the problem statement.
- Generate the project objective and establish its relationship with the initial question and the problem statement.
- Differentiate the project as a problem-solving tool from other types of projects.
Unit 2 - Sourcing information to guide examination of problem
- Recognise the connection between the real-world problem and knowledge from more formal sources.
- Provide a rationale for using a framework to undertake the search for information.
- Identify a single word or short phrase that would serve as an appropriate overarching topic or theme to unearth deeper levels of meaning in the problem.
- Conduct an analysis of the main theme in order to yield different levels of sub-themes in the building of the framework.
- Describe the characteristics of each of these two subsidiary levels of themes.
- Demonstrate an understanding of how the Levels 2 and 3 sub-themes combine to guide the search for information.
- Prepare a summary of information collected, using the pattern provided.
- Differentiate between the approaches to doing project work between one that begins with a problem idea and one that starts with a topic.
Unit 3 - Fleshing out the problem – two examples
- Identify and describe problems highlighted in everyday real-world experiences.
- Critique a video-taped interview in which problems were discussed.
- Distinguish between problems reported in a research paper and descriptions of the operations in which the problems were observed.
- Practise writing a problem statement and project objective using information from the interview.
Unit 4 - Data collection and analysis
- Establish the importance of ‘data’ in this phase of project work.
- Recognise the survey and the interview as two main data collection methods for undertaking project work.
- Identify and describe the core attributes that define these methods.
- Make the link between the questionnaire and the supporting information previously sourced.
- Explain how the questionnaire works and specify its constituent parts.
- Demonstrate an awareness of how individual items are created in the questionnaire.
- Distinguish among different types of items in the questionnaire.
- Construct a questionnaire.
- Use established criteria to assess the quality of the questionnaire.
- Distinguish among three types of interviews.
- Describe the steps required in preparing to conduct an interview.
- Demonstrate knowledge of established standards governing the conduct of the interview.
- Distinguish among the different angles for viewing survey data to be analysed.
- Organise survey data as a forerunner to conducting the analysis.
- Select and use appropriate means for summarising and presenting survey data, depending on type and measurement levels.
- Demonstrate an awareness of strategies for conducting the analysis of interview and other forms of qualitative data.
Unit 5 - Developing solutions; creating innovations
- Acknowledge that there are some projects where the focus is on the solution to be developed.
- Acknowledge that every proposal for a solution has its genesis in a problem situation.
- Be aware of the need to uncover the probable problem situations in relation to a proposed solution when only limited information is provided about the former.
- Be aware of the widely held interpretation of the concept ‘innovation’.
- Recognise the limits of such an interpretation and acknowledge the importance of incorporating an awareness of a problem when considering an innovation.
- Identify criteria used to determine whether a product or a process qualifies as an innovation.
- Explain how developing a project proposal is essentially a way of developing a solution in response to a problem.
- Identify and explain the steps in writing a project report/project proposal.
- Acknowledge that there are some projects where the focus is on the solution to be developed.
Student Questionnaire
When you have completed your study of the course, at least at this stage, please take some time to provide me with some feedback by responding to a short questionnaire. The exercise should take you no more than about 15 to 20 minutes. It is also completely anonymous. You need to log in. You will need to enter your email address to gain access. Note that when you are through, you must click on the submit button, otherwise your responses will not be recorded. Please be as honest as possible in your responses.
Thanks in advance for your kind cooperation.