Social Research Methodology

Doel vak

This course is part of the Academic Core, and aims to offer 1st year
undergraduate students of various social science degree programs of the
Faculty of Social Sciences (FSW) an introduction to the process of
social scientific research.

Learning outcomes:

Knowledge and understanding. The student has acquired knowledge and
understanding of:
(1) the distinction between research strategy, research design and
research method;
(2) the different data collection methods and analysis techniques of
social science research;
(3) the main principles of ethical review in social scientific research.

Application. The student is able to:
(4) to distinguish between the different perspectives on gathering
knowledge about the social world, and establish a relationship between
each perspective and its implications for social scientific research
(5) Follow the steps required in translating a research question into
research design, data collection into analysis design, and to identify
all considerations that need to be made.
(6) Make a distinction between various methods of data collection and
data analysis, and assess the usefulness of these methods depending on
how a research question and problem statement is defined.

Inhoud vak

This course provides an introduction to the process of social scientific
research. It makes a distinction between research strategies, research
designs and research methods. Students will first learn how to develop
research questions and/or hypotheses for a given topic. By translating a
social-scientific problem into a research question, students will gain
an understanding of the limits and potentials of social science research
and, more importantly, how the use of research methods and tools
strongly depends on a researcher’s definition of a research problem.
There are two basic approaches that define research problems: the
interpretivist approach is interested in gaining in-depth insight into
individual meanings and motives and seeks to understand human behaviour,
whereas positivist approaches look for social facts which are external
to the individual to explain that behaviour. This course provides a
thorough overview of the two strategies and prepares students to judge
the usefulness of various research methods within the qualitative and
quantitative approaches in social sciences.

The research question requires developing a research design. This
process concerns all the steps and decisions that are aimed at answering
the question. Research designs include, amongst others, decisions
regarding whether or not collecting empirical data based on experimental
design or observations, the time frame of one’s research (longitudinal
or cross-sectional design) and the choice of the research units (case
study or the comparison of many cases). The choice for a specific
research design has to fit the objectives one sets out with answering a
certain research question. Once the research design has been chosen, the
next step is to assess which methods of data collection and tools of
analysis are appropriate to successfully answer the research question.
This step allows for assessing the usefulness of employing
questionnaires, conducting interviews (structured, unstructured, focus
groups), studying texts and images (content analysis), and
(participatory) observation. Upon assessment of appropriate methods of
data collection, the next step revolves around the use of tools of
analysis. After the analysis has been finalized, insights and findings
should be presented in way that corresponds to the research problem, the
use of research method and the employed analytical framework (e.g., in
the form of an empirical article or an ethnographic study). Findings of
the research inevitably lead to asking new questions, which usually
leads to re-run the empirical cycle and start the research process all
over again.

Aanvullende informatie onderwijsvormen

Lectures

Toetsvorm

Written examination. More information is available in the course
syllabus (see CANVAS)

Literatuur

To be announced. More information is available in the course syllabus
(see CANVAS)

Aanvullende informatie doelgroep

1st year bachelorstudents FSS in International tracks