Life Sci 2A03 - Research Methodologies

Summary:

Taught by Dr. Dej in September 2009. Relatively easy course. You learn about the scientific method and its breakdown (hypothesis, experiment, etc.). You then spend most of your time learning about stem cells, cancer...

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Originally Posted by lt93

This class is great! Very interesting information. The tutorial presentation was really easy and if you put in a decent amount of effort and presented properly you will end up with a great mark. I found the multiple choice part of the test harder than the written part. The written part of the test is done on avenue, you have 2 hrs to finish it and a 2 day period to do it. For the written part you would be assigned a video to watch and answer questions about the scientific experiment and for the second one you were assigned a journal article and you had to answer questions about it. And the information in the journal article went with what you learned in class so the better the understanding of class material the easier it will be for you to come up with an answer. And the best part about this class is no EXAM! Having only 4 exams was actually such a big difference, it was great!

Put a decent effort into this class and you will get a decent mark!

So there was a final paper and a presentation? do you suggest buying the textbook?
Thanks!

There was no textbook when I took it two years ago but if the course is the same as then, i would suggest don't. you can find all info online or in lecture

I took this course in Fall 2012...Overall a fairly simple course and fairly interesting. The first half (until the first midterm) is alot of basic stuff about general research principles and methods and bit on the basics of stem cell research (mostly definitions and concepts). So first midterm avgs are high. Second midterm is more in depth on specific exps done of stem cells and more in depth knowledge of the biology of stem cells, so usually the avg of second midterm is lower. NO EXAM IN THE COURSE!! Theres weekly tutorials with super easy quizzes, each quiz worth 3%. Theres also an essay you have to write and a presentation. Essay marks are usually slightly lower than what you expect and presentation is generally very well done (Depending on your TA though) but generally everyone gets around 80+.

I took course in the winter term of 2013, and found the course to be very easy and straightforward. The course breakdown for this term was 2 MC test worth 15% each, 2 online short answer test worth 10% each, tutorial quizzes (best 6/7 count) for 18%, essay worth 18%, and a presentation worth 14%. The first half of the course was much easier than the second half, and the tutorials and presentation really help to raise your marks. The essay was marked VERY fairly and most ppl I know got 85%+ on it. Overall, I found this to be a great course to take since the material was interesting and applicable. And as others have suggested, this is a bird course and very easy to get a 11 or 12.

Who was the professor teaching it this year?

Originally Posted by Strategy

Who was the professor teaching it this year?

The prof that taught this year was Dr. Dej

I took this in winter 2013 and I had Dr. Dej.

I don't agree with the others above. This course is "easy" or "difficult" depending on the TA that
marked your test. I did the online test with my 2 roommates and we got different marks despite putting similar answers. I would not call this a bird course, in fact, I do not think they exist.

We had a hard time accessing the prof to check our tests. Even though we thought we weren't graded fairly because I had the exact same one sentence answer as my friend but she lost marks. It was really hard to get that fixed because Dr. Dej does not respond to e-mails and there is always a line for her office hours.

The course material was interesting and the prof can teach. Just had a lot of difficulties with admin stuff. But overall, I recommend this course because you do read a lot of papers and that is good practice. I believe having the ability to breakdown a research paper and understanding it is an asset.

I took this course with Dr. Dej and I didn't really like it. It was easy to get high marks in this course, but the content is very dry. Although, the course is named Research Methodologies, I think Stem cells would be a better name for it. Her tests were easy and there is very little content to memorize (since the tests are non cumulative). However, if you find mistakes in the marking your test, except no help from Dr. Dej or the instructional assistant Sunita. Sunita is a bitter person and she is the worst instructional assistant I've ever had. She is impatient and rude and she has no intention to help students.

Ok so here was the breakdown:

Tutorials - 18% (3% x 7, lowest dropped)
Midterm 1 - 25% (15% for the multiple choice, in lecture portion and 10% for the in tutorial short answer section)
Midterm 2 - 25% (same thing as above)
Presentation (in pairs) - 14%
Research Paper - 18%

The first couple lectures were about the scientific method - hypothesis, question, null hypothesis, etc. The rest of the lectures were all about stem cells. I found it pretty interesting actually because I had never learned about stem cells before. Dr. Dej seemed very nice and I thought that she was a good lecturer - she used stem cell research to teach us about the scientific method, how research is conducted, etc. I didn't mind the lectures, I'm sure people found them boring but there were only 2 per week which is nice.

I thought tutorials were kind of useless. Each was worth a total of 3%: we had to do a reflection on the learning portfolio after every tutorial (1%) and there were also quizzes in most of the tutorials (1%) plus 1% for participation (this distribution varied from tutorial to tutorial but this was a typical breakdown). My TA was great and marked easily but I heard that some were pretty strict and marked harder.

Ok so the tests. There were two tests, each had an in-class multiple choice portion and an in-tutorial short answer section. The multiple choice was fairly easy and assessed lecture content (and a little tutorial material). The short answer section was harder and the average as very low because this was the first year this short answer/online component was done in-class (vs. at home). It tested your application of the scientific method and other skills we learned in tutorial. For example, you would be presented with an experiment and you would have to answer questions about it (i.e. hypothesis, null hypothesis, methods, etc.) (we did this in one of the tutorials so that was good practice). Its open book and although you can have all your notes with you, it helps to have a basic understanding of some of the studies discussed in lecture. Time was an issue for most people and because the marks were so low, they changed the marking scheme. Originally, the short answer portions of both tests was 10% each, however they changed it so that your best of the two was worth 20%. I think most people found this very helpful - I suspect that in the future, they will adjust the tests so people will do better, however it is nice to know that the administration was fair and willing to change the mark breakdown so people did better in the course.

The paper was about the stem cell niche. You had to pick from a list of proteins that are associated with either the hair stem cell niche, the neural stem cell niche or the small intestine stem cell niche. I would suggest taking it seriously because I think people were generally disappointed with their marks.

There was also a presentation for 14% - you had to pick a popular article (from a list), find the original primary research article and discuss that. TAs marked this presentation so it depends on who you had but mine was marked very fairly.

If you have any questions, let me know.

I took this course in Fall 2013 as a student and then TAed it in Fall 2015. Here was the breakdown in Fall 2015:

Tutorials - 18% (3% x 7, lowest dropped)
Midterm 1 - 25% (15% for the multiple choice, in lecture portion and 10% for the in tutorial short answer section)
Midterm 2 - 25% (same thing as above)
Presentation (in pairs) - 14%
Research Paper - 18%

The above poster has pretty much outlined what the course is about and what topics are covered. As for the tutorials, I'd have to disagree about the fact that they're useless. You could say it is a TA bias but they are meant for students to reflect on skills learned and how they can help you in upper years. The quizzes were very straightforward and during the course of the tutorial, we would provide students with the answers to them so people would get perfect on them. The midterms were still MC + SA (in-class) but a key change from the previous year was that it was not open book. We had mixed reviews from students about it but overall, many people still scored well. The presentations were done fairly well but it really depends on who your TA is. I heard from students in my tutorial that other TAs weren't as easy and brought people's marks down so it does depend on your TA to an extent. Overall, I'd consider this course a "bridge" to upper year biology, life sciences and research practicum courses which is very helpful in the long-term! Take it seriously, put in the work and you will be fine! Good luck future Life Scis

This course is required so they used it as an opportunity to screw us over. If you ask anybody who's took it in Fall 2016, they will tell you the exact same thing: that the course is highly disorganized. Although it was Dr. Charmaine Ferguson's first time as a professor she was actually pretty good. She's very approachable, her teaching style is average and she's a really nice person! She isn't the problem at all. It's the course administrators that really messed up the course in my opinion. The multiple choice tests were fair, as were the presentations and data analysis. The short answer tests, however, were made really easy but the grading scheme for it was literally messed up. Their answer key was actually wrong in most cases, and they were very strict in terms of what answers they accepted. The class average was in the 60s for a test that should've been very easy. Otherwise, for the second test and the Data Analysis Project they aren't showing us our marks at all.. So if they made a mistake or marked unfairly we won't be able to appeal anything, we're only getting our final marks. This is absolutely insane, and things like this have really allowed us to see how disorganized the course is and it could easily impact our marks. Hopefully they remodel this course for the future Life Sci students, I don't want anyone else having the negative experience that the rest of us did. Besides all of that stuff though, the content is somewhat interesting and it actually does equip us with the research skills that you need to be competent in a research position in future years! Overall the course gets a 4 or 5 out of 10, just because of the way the course was organized.