Advanced Research Methods

These Packages are designed to give you the opportunity for highly focused advanced training in a wide range of methods and issues in qualitative research. A Package typically takes the form of three two-hour sessions, involving you in close examination of one method or issue and sometimes a closing exercise. In the past packages were offered on: analysing ‘talk’; self-reflective writing and analysis; and case study research and causal inference. There was strong postgraduate take up of these sessions.

During the Autumn term a list of the Packages being offered in the academic year 2012-13 will be advertised and you can register for them using the online booking system. You are advised to meet with your supervisor, to discuss with him/her whether there are any which are either directly connected with your research, or which would constitute an important widening of your skills and knowledge. The precise dates when each Package will run will be determined by arrangement between its coordinator and those who sign up for it. They can be at any point across the year.

Background

The University recognises the importance of making provision for advanced training in qualitative methods for its doctoral students, and has decided to do this through a series of Advanced Research Methods packages. We realise that this is a fast-moving area, in which the social sciences and humanities are learning from each other, and sharing frameworks, concepts, methods and research exemplars. We are working to the principle that advanced skills are best taught by those who have had direct experience of using them, and of having encountered the issues that they raise, in the course of their own research. Wherever possible, therefore, these Packages are being developed and presented by people with such experience. Where it is discovered that there is a need for a particular advanced methodology, but no one among our current research-active staff capable of delivering it, we will look either to bring in expertise, or to point you to provision at another UK university.

Advanced Research Methods will offer you provision which builds on beyond PGM0410 Ways of Reading, which offers a first level of postgraduate training in qualitative methods. Beyond that broad introduction, we realise that needs vary greatly, and the Packages offered through this Framework will alter year by year, according to changes in the field, identified needs, and evolving staff expertise.

These Packages are offered on the assumption that students signing up to participate in them will either have had previous introductory knowledge/experience of the topic or method being developed, or will undertake some indicated preparatory work, if your need for the approach has emerged in the course of your research. This is to ensure that the sessions are able to operate at an advanced level.

Advanced Research Methods will be organised and provided in the following way:

  1. Across the Faculties of Arts and Social Science, active research staff are being identified who by virtue of their research experience are able to offer a short, high level exploration of a specific topic or problem.
  2. An advanced research methods package will usually comprise three 2-hour sessions, concluding an exercise deriving from the topic or problem, which you will be expected to complete if you opt for the Package.
  3. During the summer of each year, a list of intended forthcoming advanced research methods packages will be assembled. The packages will indicate the nature of the topic or problem which will be explored, and what prior knowledge/experience a student will be expected to have in order to enrol.
  4. Directors of Postgraduate Studies will be asked to ensure that all doctoral students in their Department, in concert with their supervisors, consider which, if any, they wish to register for. In registering for them, you will be agreeing (a) to attend all sessions, (b) that you have the requisite prior knowledge or experience, or are prepared to acquire it by the time the Package is delivered, and (c) that you will undertake the required exercise.
  5. Near the beginning of the academic year, you will be asked to sign up for any Package (usually only one) you wish to take among those which will operate in that year.
  6. Sometimes package will have associated with them a critical exercise which you will have to complete satisfactorily. The exercise will typically take one of two forms: either a small-scale application of the method under consideration; or a critical examination of literature associated with the method. Your work will be assessed as either Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory, according to criteria indicated by the Package’s deliverer. Students successfully completing such Packages will receive a Certificate of Completion.