MSL5900 Master's Thesis in Public Management Course description

The master's thesis is worth 30 credits, which constitutes a part-time workload over two semesters or full-time workload of about five months. The master's thesis is an independent scientific work. Students will choose and elucidate a topic from the subject areas covered by the programme through systematic use of social science methods. The research question may be linked to the student's own experiences.

To be able to start on the master's thesis, the student must have passed MSL4200 Research Methods and Theory of Science.

This course will show how behavioral principles and concepts from respondent and operant conditioning are applied in research and practice.

Coursework requirements from MALK4000-401, MALK4000-403, MALKA211 and MALKA212 or equivalent must be approved to participate and submit coursework requirements in MALKA213.

On successful completion of the course, the student has the following learning outcomes classified as knowledge, skills and competence:

Knowledge

The student:

• can describe the logic and the methodology of experimental designs

Skills

The student

• can demonstrate shaping of different types of behavior in animals by using computer software
• can design and conduct experiments, either as single-case research designs or group designs
• can write a manuscript in accordance with principles in the current edition of the APA manual, using data from the Experiments
• can use the principles for citations and references as given in the current edition of the APA manual

Competence

The student

• can ask and argue for relevant research questions
• can describe methods of Experiments
• can present results from Experiments
• can discuss the results achieved in an experiment

The course includes all-day seminars, hands-on exercises and discussion of different papers. Practical exercises are the essential to this course and the exercises include the use of the software to conduct an experiment, and to write up the results from the experiment as a scientific paper. Students must have a laptop with the required software installed and means of payment for user license.

None

Individual written examination ( hjemmeeksamen), 3 weeks, maximum 50 000 keystrokes. Students may submit their exams in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or English.

All

Grade scale A-F