Research Design and Methods

Postgraduate course

Course description

Objectives and Content

The aim of the course is to give the students the theoretical and methodical on how to carry out a master project associated with media design and/or interaction design. Through participating in the course, the students will develop a concept for a research project, which will be grounded in user data collected for the project.

The course is organized as a series of modules that together will lead to the development of a master project.The students will conduct an empirical study of potential target groups for their project, and develop a project description.

The course exam is an individual project description. In those cases where the students wish to collaborate on a master's project, they provide one project description each that depicts how the different subprojects are connected.

It is highly recommended to engage in user studies as a participant. Such hands-on experience can be a good complement to better understand literature on user studies and experiments.

Learning Outcomes

A student who has completed the course should have the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student

  • Can write a clear description of a planned research project in media and interaction design.
  • Can choose relevant theories and methods in the planning of a practice-based research project

Skills

The student

  • Can integrate ideas related to software development and media design into a research and development project.
  • Can use qualitative methods for the assessment of user experience associated with a medium.
  • Can plan and perform user studies in line with relevant ethical standards.
  • Can obtain scientific literature related to specific research questions.

General competence

The student

  • Can evaluate ethical and methodological issues related to a specific research and development project within media and interaction design.
  • Can plan and carry out empirical studies for understanding users of a specific media technology, and evaluate the ethical implications of the study.

ECTS Credits

15 ECTS

Level of Study

Master

Semester of Instruction

Spring

Place of Instruction

Media City Bergen
Required Previous Knowledge
Credit Reduction due to Course Overlap
  • INFOMEVI300 (10 ECTS)
  • MEVI300 (10 ECTS)
  • INFO300 (10 ECTS)
  • MIX302 (10 ECTS)
Access to the Course
Master's Programme in Media and Interaction Design or Master's Programme in Information Science
Teaching and learning methods
Seminars, workshops, and supervision
Compulsory Assignments and Attendance

Students have the following compulsory requirements:

  • Compulsory oral and written tasks.
  • Compulsory participation: attend teaching (at least 80%) 

The compulsory requirements must be approved before the student can take the exam.

Approved compulsory requirements have no time limit.

Forms of Assessment

Project description.

The exam assignment will be given in the language of instruction in the course.

The exam answer must be submitted in the same language as the exam assignment.

Grading Scale
Pass/fail
Assessment Semester

Assessment in teaching semester.

Students with valid absence as defined in the UiB regulations § 5-5 can apply for an extended submission deadline to eksamen.infomedia@uib.no. The application must be submitted before the deadline for submission has expired.

Course Evaluation
All courses are evaluated according to UiB's system for quality assurance of education.