Prospectus

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Research in Science Communication

Course
2023-2024

Admission Requirements

Research in Science Communication is a 13-week course which is part of the Science Communication and Society specialisation. The course is open to MSc students from the Faculty of Science and to MSc students in the Biomedical Sciences programme of LUMC. Other students who are interested in following this course, should contact their own study advisor for permission.

NOTE:
There are unfortunately no spots left for students who want to follow this course as an elective course and are not following the entire SCS specialisation.

Please apply for this course through this registration form.

Description

Research in Science Communication gives students an introduction to science communication as a research field. You will learn about different research paradigms, will practice how to use communication theory to formulate research questions and will get an introduction to research methods such as interviewing, content analysis and surveys. The main focus will be on how to do science communication research. We will study good examples in the science communication literature and you will do a small literature review in this field.

Course Objectives

After completion of Research in Science Communication students are able to:

  • Describe various research paradigms.

  • Search, read and evaluate science communication literature.

  • Understand how and when to apply various (science) communication research methods.

  • Explain how to handle data and ethics.

  • Interpret results from science communication research.

  • Design a science communication research set-up.

Timetable

Preliminary schedule: Classes will take place on Wednesday afternoon 13:15 – 16:00 from September 6 – November 29, 2023. Room schedule will follow. The exam will be on Tuesday November 28 from 13:15 – 16:00.

You will find the timetables for all courses and degree programmes of Leiden University in the tool MyTimetable (login). Any teaching activities that you have sucessfully registered for in MyStudyMap will automatically be displayed in MyTimeTable. Any timetables that you add manually, will be saved and automatically displayed the next time you sign in.

MyTimetable allows you to integrate your timetable with your calendar apps such as Outlook, Google Calendar, Apple Calendar and other calendar apps on your smartphone. Any timetable changes will be automatically synced with your calendar. If you wish, you can also receive an email notification of the change. You can turn notifications on in ‘Settings’ (after login).

For more information, watch the video or go the 'help-page' in MyTimetable. Please note: Joint Degree students Leiden/Delft have to merge their two different timetables into one. This video explains how to do this.

Mode of Instruction

Lectures, in-class activities, self-study

Assessment Method

Throughout the course you will make a literature review and do an assignment on coding. The course will be finalized with an exam.

Reading List

Students should purchase or rent the following (e)book before the start of the course:

Stephen M. Croucher and Daniel Cronn-Mills - Understanding Communication Research Methods Third Edition, Routledge (2021)
https://www.routledge.com/Understanding-Communication-Research-Methods-A-Theoretical-and-Practical/Croucher-Cronn-Mills/p/book/9780367623661

Registration

Please apply for this course through this registration form. You also need to register via MyStudyMap (uSis).

From the academic year 2022-2023 on every student has to register for courses with the new enrollment tool MyStudyMap. There are two registration periods per year: registration for the fall semester opens in July and registration for the spring semester opens in December. Please see this page for more information.

Please note that it is compulsory to both preregister and confirm your participation for every exam and retake. Not being registered for a course means that you are not allowed to participate in the final exam of the course. Confirming your exam participation is possible until ten days before the exam.

Extensive FAQ's on MyStudymap can be found here.

Contact

For any information regarding this course or the SCS specialisation in general you can contact our department through: infoscs@biology.leidenuniv.nl.

Remarks

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