CEIE 603 Research Methods for Civil Engineerings

CEIE 603 Research Methods for Civil Engineers familiarizes the students with the process of rigorous research in civil engineering in an academic environment, by providing a strong background in research methods, such as critical thinking, experimental design (idea, concept, design, development), writing a scientific article, and interpretation of results (uncertainty quantification, assumptions, etc.). The course also introduces common quantitative methods in civil engineering research such as descriptive and inferential statistics, data assimilation, and hypothesis testing. The course is flexible enough to create a platform for encourage critical thinking and collaboration among students from different civil engineering disciplines.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to:

• Articulate strengths and weaknesses of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods research approaches
• Develop and evaluate the quality of engineering research questions
• Design appropriate projects to answer engineering research questions
• Critique engineering research designs
• Describe measures of quality in engineering research

Course syllabus

The Fall 2021 syllabus is available here.