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Member rate £492.50
Non-Member rate £985.00
Save £45 Loyalty discount applied automatically*
Save 5% on each additional course booked
*If you attended our Methods School in July/August 2023 or February 2024.
Monday 29 February to Friday 4 March 2016
Generally classes are either 09:00-12:30 or 14:00-17:30
15 hours over 5 days
In an applied manner, the course addresses the question “How to design a research in social sciences?” and - by revealing the logic behind designing a research - provides guidelines to develop an answer rather than a list of ready-made research designs. It starts from scratch, hence is targeted at students who did part of their BA or MA studies in a field different from the social sciences or who have only had some basic training in qualitative and/or quantitative methods and who have not yet followed a comprehensive research design seminar. Therefore, crucial decisions that have to be taken when designing a research process in social sciences, from problem definition and recognition of different research strategies (approaches) to harmonise a selection of data collection, analysis and interpretations strategies, will be discussed during the lectures in a reviewing manner. Furthermore, during the seminar part students are expected to prepare and discuss the backbone (not an exact blueprint) of a research design (a made-up or their own case, approached with different strategies).
Regarding the structure of the course, the introductory part factors that shape major characteristics of the intended research are introduced and discussed. In the main part, basic characteristics of methods and techniques that are typically applied in various steps of research process are reviewed and illustrated with examples from diverse fields of social sciences to introduce highly abstract and ideal concepts of predetermined types (not exact blueprints) of research designs, without discriminating any of them in favour of the other.
The course cannot provide expertise in various elements of a research design (e.g. in methods, not even in selected ones) nor a final research design proposal of each student’s PhD or MA project. What students can expect is to get a holistic picture of the architecture of research designs.
Samo Kropivnik has gained his PhD in the field of political science at the University of Ljubljana (UL) in 1997. Currently he is Associate Professor of Social Sciences Methodology at Faculty of Social Sciences (UL) and Senior Researcher at Institute of Social Sciences (UL FSS), teaching various courses on marketing research and political science methodology and contributing to research projects on political participation and communications by dealing pragmatically with research approaches and designs, with exploratory and descriptive research methods and techniques in general and in particular with multivariate methods such as clustering, factor analysis and regression.
The course addresses the ultimate rudimental question that every research oriented scholar has to face at the very beginning of the project, i.e. the questions “How to design my research?”. The question is addressed in an applied manner, through pointing out what the architecture of research designs in social sciences practise is about.
The major aim of the course is to make students aware of the logic behind critical decisions that have to be taken when designing a research process. Although the variety of choices at first glance might appear as unlimited and even arbitrary in combining particular elements, all decisions have to be in harmony with the overall project characteristics and so methodologically justified. Oversimplified one-dimensional divisions like e.g. between qualitative and quantitative design as opposites, between analysing words or numbers, drawing on big or small N etc. are addressed to introduce more constructive and flexible multidimensional distinctions than can be applied as guidelines in research practise.
To enable informed decisions, during the course factors that decisively shape major characteristics of the intended research are introduced and discussed:
This is clearly the least technical (or the most philosophical) part of the course that has to be comprehended in the first two days.
Positions on key factors have to be determined before analytical methods and techniques can be composed in a sound and coherent research design. But soundness and coherence still cannot be achieved without awareness of basic features of methods and techniques available to researchers. Therefore, basic characteristics of methodologies, methods and techniques that can be applied in various steps of any research process are reviewed, illustrated with examples from wide-ranging field of social sciences and discussed, e.g.:
Furthermore, approaches as mixing methods, analysing cases and tracing processes are associated with reviewed methods and techniques. The course deals with highly abstract and idealised concept of various predetermined types of research designs, without discriminating any of them in favour of the other, and not with exact blueprints of numerous more qualitative or more quantitative designs, extensively presented in a bulk of literature.
Designed at introductory level, the course certainly cannot provide expertise in various elements of a research design (e.g. in methods, not even in selected ones) but can swiftly review most of them to create a holistic picture of the architecture of research designs. At the end students are expected to better understand the variety of opportunities and exciting designs and be able to take advantage of distinctions between them in their own research projects by making informed decisions. These basic competences are expected to grow with further study of various methods and techniques and with experiences gained in continuous research work.
Basic acquaintance with most commonly referenced research designs and their building blocks is appreciated but by no means required. The more students know about applicability of various methods and techniques the more they can gain from the course, but can start from scratch since this is a basic level course.
Day | Topic | Details |
---|---|---|
1 | Introduction; Variety of designs and classifications; Key factors differentiating research designs. | Introduction: Interests and experiences in research designs; Structure of the course; References. One-dimensional classifications (e.g. qualitative and quantitative RDs) – from less to more productive understanding of distinctions. |
1 | Research approaches; Research topic, question and purpose | World-views; basics of ontology and epistemology Research question(s) or/and hypothesi(e)s; Purpose(s) of the research; Research range and time aspect; Scope of the research; Taxonomies, typologies and families of research design |
2 | Seminar (Part 1) | Students working in groups discussing, determining and justifying ontological and epistemological foundations of made-up research problems. |
2 | Collecting data I.: Assets of methods and techniques as research design building blocks | What, from who, by who, how, when; Primary and secondary data Typology of data collection strategies (communication vs. observation; structured vs. unstructured methods; method of administration; disguised vs. undisguised methods; the setting); Examples; Strategies in research practise; Measurement in surveys |
3 | Collecting data II.: Assets of methods and techniques as research design building blocks | Typology of data collection strategies, continued; Units; The logic of sampling; Probability and nonprobability samples; The logic of casing Reliability and validity; Related terms |
3 | Seminar (Part 2) | Methodological reading of research purpose and aims; Taking resources into account. Students working in groups discussing, determining and justifying data collection strategies for research problems made-up in Part 1. |
4 | Analysing and interpreting data I.: assets of methods and techniques as research design building blocks |
What kind, how, criteria for making inferences; Overlap between data collection and analysis, conceptualisation and operationalisation; Variables, measurement level, univariate (frequencies and distributions) and bivariate statistics (correlation, t-test and contingency), testing hypothesis (significance); Multivariate analysis: Regression, Clustering. |
4 | Analysing and interpreting data II.: assets of methods and techniques as research design building blocks Conclusions |
Ethnography; Interviews, focus groups, projection techniques; Producing thick descriptions, analytical reading through set lenses, annotating, associating and integrating, coding (pre-set codes; Open, axial and selective coding); Generalisations; Mixing methods; Case studies; Process tracing. Conclusions |
5 | Seminar (Part 3) | Methodological reading of research purpose and aims in the specified data context; Taking resources into account. Students working in groups discussing, determining and justifying data analysis strategies for research problems made-up in Part 1 and the data specified in Part 2. |
5 | Seminar (Part 4) | Defining alternatives to developed designs. Demonstration of SPSS and QDAMiner software (time permitting). |
Day | Readings |
---|---|
Note | CRESWELL, J.W. (2009). Research design. Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed-Methods Approaches. Third Edition. London: SAGE NEUMAN, W.L (2006). Social Research Methods. Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Sixth Edition. Boston: Pearson |
1 | CRESWELL, 2009: 3 – 21 (Part 1/1), 49 – 71 (Part 1/3), 97 – 110 (Part 2/5), 111 – 127 (Part 2/6), 129 – 143 (Part 2/7) NEUMAN, 2006: 13 – 20 (Ch1/3&4), 23 – 41 (Ch2/1), 79 – 109 (Ch4), 151 – 178 (Ch6/2,3,4&5) |
2 | Written assignment (2 pages) |
3 | CRESWELL, 2009: 145 – 171 (Part 2/8), 173 – 202 (Part 2/9), 203 – 225 (Part 2/10) NEUMAN, 2006: 179 – 218 (Ch7), 219 – 245 (Ch8) Written assignment (2 pages) |
4 | NEUMAN, 2006: 343 – 377 (Ch12), 378 – 417 (Ch13), 457 – 489 (Ch15) |
5 | Written assignment (2 pages) |
Examples will be presented but students will use no particular software. Use of notebooks/laptops with standard software is recommended.
Examples will be presented but students will use no particular software. Use of notebooks/laptops with standard software is recommended.
BRYMAN, A. (2008). Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press
della PORTA, D. & M. KEATING (ed., 2008). Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences. A Pluralist Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
EDMONDS, W.A. & T.D. KENNEDY (2013). An Applied Reference Guide to Research Designs: Quantitative, Qualitative and Mixed Methods. SAGE.
MYATT, G.J. (2007). Making Sense of Data. A Practical Guide to Exploratory Data Analysis and Data Mining. New Jersey: Wiley
THEODOULOU, O'B. (1999): Methods of Political Inquiry: The Discipline, Philosophy and Analysis of Politics. Prentice Hall