Methodology at Leuphana

Current Courses

Prof. Dr. Henrik Wehrden

Bachelor Thesis

This module supports you in the process of writing your bachelor thesis. While the lecture builds on a flipped classroom concept, it will be widely framed around the questions of the audience regarding the specific slots. The lecture thus helps you to find a topic, supervisors, and how to communicate with them. You will get input on time management, how to tame a topic, define research questions of hypotheses, research literature, and write a glossary. An additional emphasis will be set un creating methodological designs, pitfalls of research, and establishing a routine. We also give you help on how to overcome writer's block, norms and standards of science, and how to submit and defend your thesis. All individual steps will also be discussed more hands on in the tutorials.

Ziel: Vorlesung, Tutorium sowie der moodle-Kurs zielen darauf ab, den Prozess des Schreibens der Bachelor-Arbeit in allen Phasen von Beginn an bis zur Abgabe der BA-Thesis zu begleiten.

GOAL

The lectures, the tutorials as well as the moodle course aim to support the process of writing a bachelor’s thesis from start to submission.

Introduction to statistics (PhD)

Introduction to statistics

Ziel: Ability to analyse data in R

Mathematics and Statistics

The lecture is a the main basis of gaining an understanding of quantitative analyses in environmental and sustainability science as part of the module. The lecture is structured into five parts. 1) A basic introduction, including a recap of descriptive statistics, and a quick overview on data formats, data distribution and simple tests. 2) Correlations and linear models as a pivotal part of the analyses of continuous data. 3) Analyses of variance, allowing designing simple experiments and for comparing variance among different groups. 4) A quick overview of different types of experiments, and a short discussion of the normative dimensions of statistics. 5) A glimpse on Advanced statistics, including ethics and a look at future statistics.

The lecture is the main basis of information -building on a flipped classroom format between videos and a central WIKI-, and the associated tutorials are intended to deepen the understanding on the different topics and provide applied skills and knowledge. The Wiki serves as a theoretical basis, the videos provide focussed explanations, which can be considered a basis for further research projects and your thesis, should you choose to work with quantitative methods. The tutorials repeat the respective content and provide a learning experience in R.

Attending the lecture will be your best basis for gaining knowledge, and will increase your chances on passing the exam with a decent grade.

Ziel: This lecture is intended to enable students to have a basic understanding of statistics and mathematics in order to be able to design their own research projects.

Research Forum Sustainability Science

Goals of the forum

A PhD thesis is a long journey that is demanding on many different levels: the topical focus, the theoretical foundations, and the methodological approaches build the core of every PhD thesis, and are enhanced by the development of the equally important soft skills. This forum offers an interdisciplinary space for exchange with other candidates from the School of Sustainability about your PhD thesis, to workshop and test ideas outside of the box, and to present important milestones of your journey.

We’ll jointly set the agenda and facilitate each session according to the groups needs and interests: may it be literature research, methodological questions, or how to keep your motivation level up.

Our aim is to take an emergent perspective on the challenges that PhDs are facing, to use the synergies within the forum to come up with solutions, and to make the PhD journey a collective endeavour.

Ziel: We meet every Wednesday from 10 to 11am in C40.533.

Henrik joins every two weeks, and those slots are for presenting our work or asking for specific input from Henrik. The presenting PhD organizes their respective slot, invites colleagues or supervisors, assigns roles to others for moderation, feedback etc.

Every other week, the slots are organized by the PhD group without Henrik being present, and we use them how we need them: inviting someone for specific input, checking in on how we are doing, workshop-ing something together etc.

If you are interested or have any questions, feel free to contact Elisabeth Frank via elisabeth.frank@leuphana.de

Tutorial Module Bachelor Thesis - focus: writing your thesis

This tutorial should be used as a fixed framework for independent work on the Bachelor's thesis, to ask questions and receive concrete help from your peers and the tutor. Experience has shown that this makes it easier to get started and stay on track so that you can get through the Bachelor's thesis process as successfully as possible. The tutorial is designed in such a way that you can benefit from it no matter which phase of the thesis (planning) you are currently in.

The tutorial will be accompanied by the following Sustainability-Methods-Wiki article: https://sustainabilitymethods.org/index.php/How_to_write_a_thesis

Ziel: You will have the opportunity to familiarize yourself with all formal and content-related aspects of writing a bachelor thesis and to exchange ideas about this process with your fellow students. They acquire the necessary skills to successfully design their bachelor thesis.

Current Courses