MAERGD5900 Master Thesis Course description

At least 20% of the examination papers will be assessed by an external examiner together with an internal examiner. The remaining papers will be assessed by two internal examiners. The external examiner’s assessment should benefit all students.

10 ECTS credits overlap with MAERGD4100 Knowledge Translation.

After completing the course, the student is expected to have achieved the following learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and competence:

Knowledge

The student

• has advanced knowledge about relevant research, theory and methods of importance to the work on preparing a limited occupational therapy research question relating to daily life or working life

Skills

The student is capable of

• developing a research design in line with the applicable research ethical guidelines and analysing their own or existing material and disseminating the results

Competence

The student is capable of

• designing, initiating and carrying out small-scale research studies
• assessing the methodological and theoretical preconditions for scientific studies
• disseminating the results of their own and other's research to professionals and the general public

Work and teaching methods include lectures, seminars and supervision.

At the start of the third year, the students on the programme will attend an initial seminar, which focuses on the project descriptions. The students will present their descriptions and receive feedback from the supervisors/lecturers and fellow students. After this, the students will continue working on their project description as necessary. The project description must be submitted the following week and forms the basis for the first supervision session.

The students will be allocated a supervisor within three weeks of submitting their project description. Students must have passed all exams in the first and second years in order to be assigned a supervisor, cf. the progress requirements. The student and supervisor sign a supervision contract that regulates responsibilities and rights, time frames and availability. The supervisor must approve the final project description.

Supervision is important during the whole writing process in order to discuss and decide how to formulate research questions, the quality of the data collection and data analysis, and to ensure that the project complies with research ethics conventions. The student is entitled to up to 25 hours of supervision, where two of the hours are related to the project description.

Four one-day seminars will be held in addition to the initial seminar. At these, the students are given the opportunity to discuss their projects and receive feedback from their fellow students and supervisors/lectures.

1) Participation at the seminars is compulsory.

The minimum attendance requirement at the master's seminars is 80 per cent. To the extent possible, a student who exceeds the maximum limit for absence will be required to submit extra coursework to compensate for his/her absence. If this is not possible, the student must move down a year to the next year group.

2) The student must attend two hours of supervision in order to quality-assure their work on the project description.

The supervisor will evaluate the planned project, the project description and other important aspects of the master's thesis together with the student in the initial phase.

The coursework requirements must be met before the master's thesis can be submitted for assessment.

Language of instruction: Norwegian

This course looks at different perspectives on adolescent health and political guidelines for public health work targeting young people. Social factors that are significant to the environment where young people grow up and their habits and lifestyles are thematised through the Ungdata surveys and relevant research. How population data can be used in local health promoting and preventive work is explored through the planning of concrete projects. Young people’s participation is a key aspect of this work. The course emphasises critical reflection on different approaches to health promoting and preventive work among adolescents at the group and system level. The course is organised in cooperation with NOVA (Norwegian Social Research) at OsloMet, which is among other things responsible for the Ungdata surveys.

One external and one internal examiner will assess all the students.