Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

Content

Topics will include:

1. Introduction to the nature of criminology and criminal justice research: purpose and principles;
2. Traditional and contemporary theories of criminology and criminal justice and research methodologies;
3. Developing a research proposal;
4. Writing a criminology literature review, including critical evaluation of criminology literature;
5. Writing a criminology thesis proposal, including the ability to formulate a thesis; how to frame a discussion or argument; and how to critically self-evaluate, edit, and revise the proposal itself;
6. Writing and presenting research, including editing, formatting, advanced referencing and oral presentation skills.

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

Mode: Lectures, tutorials, electronic consultation, library tasks and presentations or Online lectures and activities.

Duration: 3 hours per week over 12 weeks or equivalent. Students are expected to spend 150 hours in total for this unit.

This level four unit allows students to develop advanced research, writing and criminology reasoning skills.

Our strategy is to encourage students to creatively engage with unit content and to practice these skills. Honours students are adult learners who are typically self-directed, need to take responsibility for their own learning and that learning should contribute to fostering ‘deep’ learning.

Honours students will have the opportunity to develop their thesis proposal as part of this unit.

The unit is designed to be delivered in intensive, weekly or online mode. We have taken a multimodal learning approach to provide accessibility and flexibility to our students and a student focused approach that increases depth of learning and engagement through actively utilising LMS. 

Students will undertake practical learning activities that focus on developing the skills required to identify and report gaps in scientific literature with a view to suggesting new areas of scientific enquiry. These include active learning activities, such as reading, writing, discussion and critical evaluation to promote analysis, synthesis and application of relevant scholarly works. Students will develop a research design to solve a research question allowing them to demonstrate an applied understanding of appropriate research techniques and a thesis evidencing advanced presentation skills in the form of a piece of scholarly writing.

This unit comprises 150 hours in total with a normal expectation of 36 hours of directed study. Directed study might include lectures, tutorials, webinars, podcasts etc. Students will be expected to use lectures as the core learning content supported by directed learning that advances the detailed explanation and exploration of those concepts. The balance of the hours becomes self-directed study.