Foundations of Social Science Research: Philosophy, Design, & Practice

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Demonstrate ability to design an original research project recognising philosophical, methodological, and practical demands and trade-offs involved in research.
• Develop practical skills in academic writing, qualitative and quantitative data analysis and presentation
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding to identify different value positions and their implications for research.
• Demonstrate ability to define and formulate research problems, questions and hypotheses.
• Develop practical skills in implementing a specific theoretical or empirical research method from a broad range of methodological approaches which may include - for example - methods approaches such: quantitative, qualitative, experimental, mixed methods, AI and machine learning, visual, text data, social media and big data.
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding to describe the utility of diverse methodological approaches to research.
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding to critically evaluate philosophical debates in social science.
• Demonstrate ability to identify and apply key principles of research ethics in research design and practice, including developing principles and practices towards open science and reproducibility.
• Demonstrate knowledge and understanding to describe the relationship between philosophical standpoints and methodological strategies.

Week 1-6: Philosophy of Social Science

Week 7-12: Research Design and Research Practice

12x 2-hour dynamic workshop sessions combining instructor-led lectures and student-led interactive activities

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.