Brief Course Description
This course is designed to help students learn and apply all the concepts and skills needed to conduct a scientific and geographic research project from beginning to end. It also aims to equip students to understand and critically assess scientific research that has been conducted using a variety of approaches. Essentially, the course provides basic tools and techniques for research to help students follow their curiosity by investigating human and physical geography real-world problems and questions in a scholarly way. Topics addressed include; Introduction to research methods, geographic dimensions of research topics, Literature review, The research process, research proposal and research report formats, formulation, evaluation, and communication, conclusions and inferences from researched information.
Course Objective
At the end of the course the student should be able to:
To introduce students to a variety of methods in the study, analysis and research in geography
To introduce students to research in a variety of geographical environments i.e. skills of identifying and explaining research problems
To enable students to select appropriate methods to study diverse geographical issues
To develop student's geographical skills of numeracy and data collection, data management, manipulation, analysis, display, interpretation and explanation, report writing and presentation
Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will be able to:
Design simple research projects using a diversity of approaches and techniques of information collection, analysis, display and interpretation
Designing questionnaires
Demonstrate ability to undertake geographical analysis and research
Design a range of methods to undertake geographical analysis and research
Formulate basic research questions and proposals in physical and human geography contexts
Apply basic statistics to geographical data
Analytical skills
Ability to describe, analyse, interpret and synthesize data
Ability to present findings using oral, written or electronic media
Ability to work effectively within a group
6 Lessons
Updated: Apr 2026
