Improve Horticultural Research Skills
Learn advanced research techniques, project planning, statistical analysis, and report writing skills for horticultural and agricultural applications.
Research is valuable, contributing to our understanding of what factors are influencing observed outcomes, which need changing, and what specific changes may be needed. Learn how to collect data, create useful visualisations, conduct analysis, and use your work to solve problems.
This course follows Horticultural Research I, but can be taken as a stand alone course if you have any experience in the area.
Course Code: BHT241
Course Duration: 100 hours of self paced studies
Course Structure
This course consists of 7 lessons.
Lesson 1: Identifying Research Issues and Determining Research Priorities
- Finding research ideas
- Brainstorming techniques and mind mapping
- Concept mapping
- Determining research priorities
- Beginning a research project
- Formulating a research topic and hypothesis
- Assessing research feasibility
- Research terminology
Lesson 2: Acquisition of Technical Information
- Literature reviews
- Research methodologies
- Experimental and correlational research
- Questionnaires, surveys, and testing
- Document reviews
- Naturalistic observation
- Focus groups
- Case studies
Lesson 3: Specialised Research Techniques
- Selecting appropriate research methods
- Fishbone (cause and effect) diagrams
- Lateral thinking techniques
- Pareto analysis
- Observation methods
- Root cause analysis
Lesson 4: Research Planning and Designing
- Project planning and design
- Defining problems and objectives
- Problem tree analysis
- SWOT analysis
- Prioritising objectives and activities
- Resource allocation
- Results evaluation and assessment
Lesson 5: Statistics
- Introduction to statistics
- Data presentation techniques
- Measures of central tendency
- Understanding distributions
Lesson 6: Conducting Research
- Collecting and recording data
- Developing database structures
- Data transformations
- Data analysis techniques
- Data management
- Analytical procedures
Lesson 7: Writing Reports
- Reporting research results
- Research report structure
- Components of a professional research report
- Common report writing pitfalls to avoid
Who This Course Is For
This course is ideally suited to those who work in, or are planning to work in:
- Horticulture research
- Teaching
- Horticultural science
- Plant breeding
- Botany
- General horticulture
Horticulture research is also suited to people who have a genuine interest in learning more about their field of interest, and even to those with little background in horticulture.
Thinking of Enroling? Get in Touch!
Our friendly staff understand the importance of making the right choices when it comes to studying.
We can help you to choose the right course! Whether you're learning is for personal interest, upskilling, professional development, a new career, or a career change. Contact us! Email admin@acs.edu.au | Call (07) 5562 1088