Doing Political and Social Research
Overview
- Credit value: 30 credits at Level 6
- Convenor: Barry Maydom
- Assessment: a two-hour in-class test (40%), 2500-word research design (50%) and two online multiple-choice quizzes (10%)
Module description
In this module you will develop your ability to conduct independent research projects using a range of methods and to critically evaluate existing political and social research.
The first half of the module focuses on research design, examining the philosophical underpinnings of social research, the role of research questions in the research process, how to integrate theory, concepts and measurement, approaches to inference and issues of research ethics and integrity.
The second half of the module will train you in a variety of methods commonly used in social research, including interviews, focus groups, case studies, archival research, experiments and ethnography.
Indicative syllabus
Term 1
- Ontology and epistemology in social research
- Research questions
- Literature reviews
- Theory
- Concepts
- Measurement
- Descriptive and causal inference
- Research integrity
- Research ethics
Term 2
- Interviews
- Elite interviews
- Focus groups
- Comparative case studies
- Single case studies and process tracing
- Documents and archives
- Ethnography
- Experiments
Learning objectives
By the end of this module, you will:
- be familiar with different research philosophies and approaches
- be aware of your own research philosophy
- be able to critically engage with existing political and social science research
- be able to undertake your own independent research
- have developed your academic writing and argumentation skills.