Research Seminar

Recommended Prerequisites

Students must have completed the first curricular year with success.

Teaching Methods

This unit is organized in two sets of  seminar sessions. The initial sessions include the presentation by the lecturer/professor or by a guest speaker, followed by an open discussion. A second group of sessions, towards the end of the semester, is dedicated to the presentation and discussion of the thesis projects in progress. Participation will be supervised by the responsible teacher on a tutorial basis.

Evaluation is based on the final thesis project to be presented and discussed before before an academic panel, corresponding to an essay of circa 75000 characters.

Learning Outcomes

This curricular unit is oriented towards the preparation and discussion of the research projects of the students. The students are expected to participate actively in a number of sessions on research methods, preparation and organization of a doctoral dissertation, as well as on empirical research methods. All students have to submit their preliminary research project and subsequent developments to the critical judgment of the lecturers and of their peers, with the aim of promoting academic exchange and concrete thematic and methodological reflections. The seminar concludes with the presentation (and defense) of the students’ PhD projects in a session before a panel defined by the programme’s coordination.

Work Placement(s)

No

Syllabus

This unit syllabus is oriented towards the elaboration of a doctoral dissertation, including several moments, namely:

- the organization of a doctoral thesis and of the thesis project,

- the writing of research results and critical discourse analysis,

- fieldwork and paradigmatic case studies,

- participative processes and observation,

- the use of qualitative and quantitative methods in the social sciences and data analysis,

- collaborative work and critical reflective practice,

- dialogic and non extractionist methodologies,

- presentation and discussion of thesis projects.

This unit is taught through the collaboration of lecturers with expertise on the different themes and approaches; the themes and approaches are defined in the course of each new edition.

Assessment Methods

Assessment
Project: 100.0%

Bibliography

A natureza desta unidade não exige a especificação deste ponto / The nature of this unit does not require the specification of bibliographic references.