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The activity attached below develops my scholarship and systems thinking competencies.

This activity taught me about research design justification, sub-category, strengths and limitations. Read more in my About Me section.

Link to tweets which following questions are based on: https://ulwazi.wits.ac.za/courses/46790/pages/session-3-mixed-methods-research-designs?module_item_id=473056. Queen and Ahmed use the phrase “real”. What do you think are the main characteristics of “real research”? Real research answers questions about phenomena that occur in the world, tests hypothesis and is systematic for example qualitative or quantitative research styles which are thought-out and methodological. Queen’s tweet on supporting quantitative research design is quite strong. What are the strengths and applications of quantitative research design that validate her viewpoint? Of what limitations of quantitative research do you think she needs to be reminded? Quantitative research designs are used to collect numerical data objectively, to reduce bias and ensure academic rigour. Quantitative research designs are usually applied from the perspective of a positivist research paradigm where the reason for doing research is to establish causal relations that can be used to predict and control phenomena. Some disadvantages are, it can be expensive to collect the needed data and not many outcomes can be found in this type of research. In Ahmed's reply to Queen, he seems to be fully supportive of only using qualitative research designs. What are the strengths and applications of qualitative research design that validate his viewpoint? Of what limitations of qualitative research do you think he needs to be reminded? Strengths of qualitative research are Generates hypotheses and records subjects’ lived experiences.Some disadvantages of this type of research are Self-selection bias and it can be time-consuming to conduct. Linda seems to think that mixed-methods research is the answer to all research design problems. Do you agree? Substantiate your answer, providing examples on whether you think mixed-methods research can practically address all limitations of the previous two research designs. Yes, I do agree, Mixed methods research design is an approach to research in which both quantitative (close-ended) and qualitative (open-ended) data is rigorously collected and analysed in response to research questions and hypotheses, it has the strengths of both qualitative and quantitative research design. Which research design methods would you prefer to use to conduct research? Give reasons for your choice. Quantitative research, because numbers if collected and analysed well can be more reliable as well as being able to answer hypothesis, which I prefer compared to qualitative research where hypothesis are generated.

This activity helped me understand the logic and practical thinking that goes into selecting participants for a research study. Read more in my About me section.

The purpose of the session that this activity was done was to continue the planning of our essay, by familiarising ourselves with debates around Depo-Provera, and by beginning to locate ethical and moral theories that will assist us in structuring our arguments. There was a mock debate where the use of Depo-Provera was discussed. In the activity I take note of some of the arguments and rebuttals in the debate. This activity helped me to decide on which side of the Depo-Provera argument i was going to write about. The activity also taught me the art of debating, it showed me the importance of listening to the opposite side of an argument and then understanding the argument well enough to make a rebuttal. This activity was really helpful for preparing for debating that I had to do later ion in the semester. I've included this activity because I found it helpful in my essay and debate.

This is a planning template for Term Paper 3, I've included it to document my writing journey through HSS.

The purpose of this activity was to write an introduction to Term Paper 3, our ethics essay. From the lectures we were supposed to put the following into practice: Key points to consider when writing an introduction: Introduce your reader to the subject of your essay. Give your reader an overview of what you will be doing (road map). Assume the reader does not know the question – tell them what your essay is about. Summarise and interpret the question, but don’t write it out. Give a breakdown (road map) of the most important sections of your essay. Say what position you will be defending (thesis statement). Following the basic structure of ‘Hook’, ‘Context’, and ‘Thesis Statement’.: Hook Think about beginning your essay with a hook, which is an opportunity to capture your readers’ interest and contextualises the topic of your essay. This gives you the chance to introduce your reader to the subject of your essay. Context The context of your essay needs to be well developed where you can give an explanation of any unfamiliar terms and clarify your understanding of the essay context. If you take the stance that your reader does not know much about the topic of your essay, think about what terms might need clarification. By doing this, you can summarise and interpret the question for the reader. Thesis Statement Finally, you need to take a stance by making a clear thesis statement. It is useful to think about what type of claim you are making, what the warrant is behind that claim, and specifically in the context of an ethics essay, what moral or ethics theory underpins that claim. The statement does the work of more narrowly defining and making more specific the moral issue you are addressing.

This activity taught me how to substantiate my arguments with evidence and how to avoid logical fallacies in my arguments.

This activity is an exercise on data analysis, where we considered how to analyse the various types of data given to us in a data set. This activity taught me how different data collection tools are analysed as well as developed my HSS competencies, read more on my About Me page.

The purpose of this activity was to look at how to write a conclusion, and to review some general tips for writing a strong ethics essay. This was an opportunity to review, edit, and make adjustments to the essay to ensure that there is a consistent thread from beginning to end.The development a conclusion must follow the structured approach that has guided you through the writing of your introduction and body paragraphs. Structurally, the conclusion acts as a mirror to your introduction, highlighting for the reader what they have read, and reinforcing your stance. A conclusion must be impactful, as it is the last paragraph that your reader will read. Just like Activity 6.20.6: Essay Outline I completed this activity after my Term Paper 3, I'm confident in my abilities to write a conclusion, so this activity assisted me in refining my summarising and synthesising skills. Just like Activity 6.20.6: Essay Outline, I've included this activity because it helped me to be able to write a better term paper in block four by completing it.

This activity was assigned to assist in planing the body paragraphs which will help towards writing a well-structured, cohesive and coherent ethics essay. The purpose of spending a lot of time on the planning part of the essay is that it allows the student to categorise ideas, shift around information and supporting points, and to delete and add points with ease. It is much more difficult to make these structural changes to an essay that has already been written. Spending time on planning allows students to process the information, decide on main and supporting points, gather evidence, and build the structure or the skeleton of their essay. With proper and detailed planning, writing a structured piece is so much easier. I had not done this activity before my Term Paper 3, the ethics essay mentioned above, i had poor time management skills during this block. I did this activity after my term paper. I did find this activity useful in noticing flaws in my writing and I do wish that I completed the activity before I did my term paper 3. I've included this activity because it helped me to be able to write a better term paper in block four by completing it.

Community Oriented Primary Care, COPC, is a systematic approach to health care based upon principles derived from epidemiology, primary care, preventive medicine, and health promotion (Longlett et al. 2001). There are steps to implementing COPC, they are: Defining and characterising the community. Conducting a community diagnosis to identify community health problems - which is self-generated by the community. Developing and implementing an intervention - based on what is said BY the community. Monitoring & evaluating the impact of intervention. Involving the community to carry out the preceding four steps. With this activity I practiced using these steps in my community, I struggled to be able to complete this activity because of the community that I live in. However, because this is an activity that there was tutoring for, I was able to learn and grow my understand of COPC implementation from hearing about fellow classmate's communities. I've included this activity to document how COPC implementation occurs.