Studying at postgraduat
e level
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Get Ahead 2012Angela Dierks
What do you think are the differences between UG
and PG study?
Check with your
neighbour.
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What will be different about postgraduate study?
• Develop your skills to a higher level
• Acquire new skills• Work more independently• Work with a supervisor
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Develop your skills to a higher level
Student Services
www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeck
•gather appropriate material•critically evaluate your material (eg assess relevance of theories)•use it as the basis for logical argument and discussion (developing a rationale)
Anderson’s and Krathwohl’s Taxonomy of
Cognitive Domain1. Remembering: Retrieving, recalling, or recognizing knowledge from
memory.2. Understanding: Constructing meaning from different types of functions
be they written or graphic messages activities like interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
3. Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through executing, or implementing.
4. Analyzing: Breaking material or concepts into parts, determining how the parts relate or interrelate to one another or to an overall structure or purpose.
5. Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
6. Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning or producing. www.bbk.ac.uk/mybirkbeck
Student Services
Acquire new skills• Read more widely and beyond core
material• Demonstrate academic judgement by
gathering appropriate published material and evaluating it
• Gather and process evidence• Apply appropriate research methodologies• Present your findings in an appropriate
manner
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Student Services
Read more widely and critically
• Know your way around a range of resources including electronic databases and ejournals
• Need to evaluate material in terms of relevance, provenance and research methods
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Demonstrate academic judgement
• Question what you read
• Draw your own conclusions about the value of the work
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Gather and process evidence
• Undertake literature review
• Gather data, eg through questionnaires, interviews or surveys
• Be aware of ethics
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Apply appropriate research methodology
Three types of research:
• Quantitative (eg based on surveys and numerical data)
• Qualitative (eg interviews, grounded-theory, case study)
• Mixed: quantitative and qualitative
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Present your findings
• Giving a presentation
• Dissertation writing
• Appropriate referencing
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Work more independently
Need to be good at project management including– Time management– Organisational skills – Knowledge management– Scoping
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Work with a supervisor
• Clarifying the scope of your work
• Finding the right supervisor
• Establishing a positive working relationship
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Student Services