Enhancing the teaching of research methods in engineering: Challenges and solutions

Engineering education primarily provides students with the ability to apply scientific and mathematic principles to technical problems, whilst research methodology refers to the process of applying systematic procedures and techniques to resolve research questions. A lack of scientific training, in research methodology, and an inexperience with human data can be detrimental for engineering students when addressing real world challenges. Therefore, the motivation of this paper was to explore innovative teaching methods, to enhance the education of engineering students on a newly developed, postgraduate research methods module. Said module had a view to expanding student understanding and knowledge through planning and conducting qualitative and quantitative research. This paper explores the differences seen between two cohorts of research methods students, delivered within the first term of study across three MSc Engineering courses. Qualitative findings associated with student feedback are presented considering the unique teaching and assessment challenges of delivery to a predominantly international cohort of postgraduate students. Innovative pedagogic approaches were considered based upon student satisfaction feedback, assessment results and the occurrence of academic irregularities. This study aims to share the module design, the approaches used in teaching, a summary of lessons learned from the two cohorts and suggestions for further enhancement of the module.