Online Horticultural Research I Course

What can good research skills do for you? Good research skills will enable you identify emerging trends and changes that affect horticulture, and to help formulate better strategies, practices and uses for horticulture. Your ability to conduct and present research can lead to innovations that address crucial local and global issues, or to the provision of cutting-edge horticultural services. This course will develop your ability to research and present a critical, written and numerical assessment of information related to social, technological, environmental and economic issues that impact on Horticulture today.

Good research skills will enable you be an innovator in horticulture, and to identify trends, issues, and needs that can create new opportunities and directions in horticulture.

• This course has been developed by professionals in both [MARKET_NAME] and the UK, with the aim of being relevant throughout the world.

• This is a module in the Royal Horticultural Society's Master of Horticulture

Course Structure

The course contains seven lessons:

1. Determining Research Needs

2. Searching for Information

3. Research Methods

4. Using Statistics

5. Conducting Statistical Research

6. Research Reports

7. Reporting on a Research Project

For many students, their first experience with research occurred in school where they were required to prepare a research report or a presentation on a particular subject. This is the fundamental level of research, and its aim is to gather information on a topic, which is later to be presented to an intended audience (a class, teacher etc). Examples are research on a particular country, animal, or political system.

Another level of research aims at answering a research question (often called the thesis question). The information that is gathered and presented is chosen in order to answer that question. Examples of research questions are: What main social and political factors contribute to poverty in country X? Why is the Madagascan lemur an endangered species? How was language used to justify and maintain the Cold War last century? Well formulated and pertinent questions can lead to meaningful research projects that can greatly increase our understanding of the world and ourselves. The problem with this kind of research, though, is that it can be very difficult to know what questions to ask.

What you will do in this course

• Conduct preliminary investigations to determine areas where there is a valid need for research in social, technological and environmental issues that impact on horticulture today

• Conduct an information search into a defined issue related to social, technological and environmental issues that impact on Horticulture today.

• Explain research methods, including experimental techniques, commonly used.

• Demonstrate and explain the basic statistical methods used for research.

• Conduct a minor statistical research project into a well defined area, relevant to your area of study.

• Prepare a research report in a format which conforms to normal industry procedures.

• Demonstrate critical analytical thinking, reviewing skills and report writing skills

Scope of Each Lesson

1. Determining Research Needs
   Overview
   Identifying research needs
   The research goal
   The research question
   Other questions to clarify the research goal
   Sources of information
   What information is required
   Depth and breadth of data
   Setting realistic research parameters
   Constraining factors

2. Searching for Information
   Kinds of exploratory research
   Primary data research
   Secondary data research
   Literature reviews

3. Research Methods
   Key research terms
   Experimentation
   A controlled environment
   Field trials
   Steps in collection and analysis of data
   Conducting a crop trial
   Setting up a Comparison trial
   Running a trial: records and recording
   Evaluating the trial
   Interviewing skills: procedure, asking questions, types of questions
   Ways of handling difficult questions

4. Using Statistics
   Overview: Descriptive statistics, Inferential statistics
   Official statistics
   Reasons for using statistics
   Advantages of statistics
   Statistics: as guides and motivators
   Disadvantages of statistics
   Issues to consider
   Descriptive statistics
   Observed and expected rates
   Confidence intervals
   Standardizing
   Reliability of statistics
   Presenting statistics: pie charts, bar charts, histograms
   Descriptive statistics: mean, median, mode, variation, variance, standard deviation, correlation, probability, etc

5. Conducting Statistical Research
   Collecting quantitative data

Conducting a survey
Form of data
Planning a formal survey
Designing a questionnaire
Common problems

6. Research Reports
   Report writing tips
   Structure of a report
   The report online
   Research papers
   Referencing

7. Reporting on a Research Project
   This lesson brings together what you have learned in previous lessons, in terms of critical assessment of other authors research papers or reports, and demonstrating your report writing skills.

Interested? Request a free information pack today!