I do not recall reading anywhere what level this course is intended for so if I missed that information, I apologize. I signed up for this course as I am interested in (graduate level) research, as indicated in my discussions around PhD work, and I believed this course would be helpful in decemenating other academic works I will read in the future. I have completed graduate level work in Research Designs & Methodology so I suspect this course was not intended for people such as myself. I enjoyed the refresher though, and I will definitely be revisiting the three chapters on Literature Reviews, as this was not an aspect that was covered very thoroughly in my graduate course and would make up a LARGE portion of any work on a PhD thesis.

As for this course specifically, I found some of the video segments very repetitive - several times the researchers interviewed appeared to deliver nearly identical messages. These video segments were rather short but I found some of them redundant. I did enjoy the written assignments, except for the one, I believe in week 3, for which the assignment called for us to "respond to" Creswell, without ANY further details on what the response was intended to detail. I would strongly urge you to make this piece clearer for the future. Overall, I believe this course to be a very good introductory course to research methods.

Very good in some ways, very poor in others, so a three.

I learned a lot. I did the reading, I did the exercises and read around the topic. So from my point of view worthwhile. On the other hand I kept getting requests to pay £39 pounds for a certificate. Why not, it presumably says that you have completed a University of London course, which has to be a good thing. I don't need a certificate, as I'm taking the course for my own personal study needs.

However, it became obvious to me that many other people were cheating . It's not difficult at all and I suspect many people paying for the certificate have done little or no work at all. This means that the certificate is completely devalued. I was disappointed that both Coursera and the University of London (which is where both my degree and PGCE certificate are from) are prepared to put their names to something so valueless.

It was clear that there were other people who, like me, were using the course to learn - I learned a lot from reading their submissions, but I wonder how disappointed those people must feel knowing that others are failing to do the work.

Good and Bad. The course content is really basic, and I wish it went into greater depth and detail. For instance, the videos, instead of actually giving you an idea of HOW to do a literature review, just have researchers talking about the importance of a literature review, over and over. The videos weren't helpful at all. The course materials WERE a good source of information, however. If you are a self-starter, you'll get something out of the course.

My only other gripe, which I think is a huge problem with the course, is that the certificate doesn't state how much time you actually took to do the course. This is a problem for healthcare professionals that need continuing education hours.

The readings were very helpful, but it seems to me that what the videos offer is not substantial information and not so related to the readings. For example, on the subject of research planning, almost all the videos said that planning is important and that you have to plan. I am also an educator and I think they are always due for examples, I do it based on my experience. I could give specific examples, but giving soft recommendations is not what educators can contribute based on their rich experience, nor concepts because they are found in the readings, you have to tell your experience and give examples. Evaluations can also be improved.

The course was of great help. It provides valuable insights to engage in academic research. However, I rate it only with three starts because I think it is too basic for the complexity involved in real research. Also I think some ideas provided in the course could be better organized. For example, in week three, the topic was understood to be something like "Management Skills Applied to Research" but the material pointed to something totally different. All ideas presented were great, but I think it is just matter to clarify better the objectives in each week.

Instructions for E-tivity 3 are not clear at all.

The readings concerning literature review are very heavy. I would suggest only asking the students to read Kiteley & Stogdon, as the content is straigtforward, clear and relevant.

It is not very easy and not intuitive to understand the differences between qualitative and quantitative researches. i think it would be good to give some concrete examples of research approaches.

I found the most interesting part of the course was the interviews from academics concerning the literature review.

The organization of this course was very good. I liked the themes and their order. I thought the videos could have been longer and more substancial, but the reading were great. I got confused on one of the assignments in which the questions of the given chapter were supposed to be answer. There were 3. I must have misunderstood or have another file, because no one I read had such question and I got not so great reviews. I think this should be looked at. Either way, thank you for this opportunity!

Unfortunately the course info was not clear enough that it was aimed to social science area. Of course the student should be able to understand the ideas and adapt to any research area. Still it was a major disappointment. The videos included are kind of shallow, the text on the other hand are more robust and added to my knowledge. I wouldn't recommend this course for PhD students (you should already know this things by now!), but rather for undergraduate.

this is a very foundational course about how to do a reserach, including what is a good research question and why literater review is important. however, it concludes few content about research methods. if you want to understand more about research methods such as quants (t, f, data analysis, etc.) and qualitative methods (discourse analysis, field research, interview, questionnaire survey, etc.), you need to find some other useful couses to fulfuill them

The course gives a brief insight on how a research may be conducted, I like how the videos are kept short and truly useful, however, I believe that for the reading parts, there should more assistance in helping course takers to better understand them as for instance by making some videos that aid us o better comprehend the content of the reading assignments especially that of E-tivity 3 as its of vital importance. Thanks!

The course seems fairly well planned with lots of free articles. The peer reviewed assignments provide opportunities to give and receive feedback. However, the instructions for E-tivity 3 gave instructions which confused many course participants (including myself). Perhaps clearer instructions would have made participants more likely to be able to meet the assignment deadline.

If you are new in research, the videos provide a general idea of what to expect during the research. The extra readings are good to go in-depth, but the peers-review is not worth it at all. People don't take the reviews seriously and some feedback is just worthless. Implementing feedback from the professors would be perfect.

The course materials were very informative and the peer activities are worth it. However, the lessons/videos are not in-depth and are mainly edited segments of interviews about general experiences of researchers. It could have been better if they had in-depth lectures that resemble a teacher-student relationship.

Nice course but lot of troubles are arising during the completion of this course. still i am unable to complete it and could not find out the reason. Once i got a message that my course is completed and i can get my certificate but now it says still assignment pending... i dont know how to deal with it.

Overall, the course was good. However, it is suggested that there should be quizzes at the end of each week. Further, apart from peer review, weekly assignments may be reviewed by a Professor of the University of London who may share his/her valuable feedback highlighting the areas of improvement.

The course is too brief. The first 2 weeks material was good, but the other half is weak and it left me with no real answers at all. This course made me understand what is the first stage of research, but the title is misleading since it does not actually talk about the different research methods.

Some parts were good but overall the course was lacking in its ability to add value. There were generic discussions. Week 3 was almost useless; had it not been for a good reading provided for an assignment, it was too basic.

Add some specificity in the course or name it Basics of Research Methods.

The course was short and like a mini introduction to research methods. I liked hearing from different experts and their views and opinions on the subject. I hoped for a more detailed course and in depth learning opportunity. I benefited from the course but it didn't meet my expectations.

This is basic course, suitable for undergrads, the spoken experience were great to share. kudos to authors, each exemplars, provide new perspective. provide deeper understanding of research methods. Formulation of hypothesis, aims, objectives, could have been more interesting. Thanks..

While there are great readings and development in the first two weeks, there is no tutoring on creating a structured research proposal. How would the student take their research question and knowledge of literature and methods into a proposal? What would the structure look like?

this was a good intro course. It would have been nice to get actual feedback from my peers. Where it indicated 50 words or more I would often get "good" from my peers after I would spend time and effort reading and reviewing my peers work. I could use the input for myself.

The course provides very insightful interviews and detailed reading material. The overall assignment based organization of the course makes it very easy to understand. However, it feels lacking in content. I do not feel I have learned much after having completed the course.

The objectives of the course are great, especially for someone who wants to refresh some of their basic soft skills in research. I would have given this a 4-star rating but the end-of-week evaluation was confusing. The instructions/questions are vague like in the 3rd week.

The course gave a comprehensive overview, but I would have liked to learn more about research methods. Creswell's book would have been better narrated by the video's guests for the first chapter. This course is called Introduction to Social Research, I believe.

although the course is a good one to know about research at the beginner level. Yet considering the target audience may even be phd fellows like me, the course could have been a little more detailed or provided more readings like the ones on literature review.