Learning to Research Through Inquiry-Based Learning - A Field Report from Exploratory Sexual Research in Psychology

Research is a challenging aspect for students for several reasons: Research is a complex process that is usually addressed in many small-scale steps in a wide variety of courses. However, students often fail to see the big picture. This paper describes a competence-oriented inquiry-based learning approach to improve psychology students’ research skills. In a capstone project, students are guided by the instructor through a complete research process in which they define their own research question, decide independently on the research design, and conduct and document the research. They conduct guided interviews on “explorative sexual research”. Evaluation shows the high gain of competence for students. At some point, students ask for a little more assistance for example by preparing a research report.