Research Methods and Approaches (828M9)

15 credits, Level 7 (Masters)

Autumn teaching

The module will cover the range of qualitative and quantitative methods in social science and will provide the skills to develop a research outline. It will equip you with the ability to come up with an interesting and workable research question and testable empirical hypotheses, an ability to select cases/sample and appropriate methods for analysis, a focus on how to find appropriate data sources and conduct data analysis (either quantitative or qualitative), and how to interpret the results in relation to the available literature.

Teaching

50%: Practical (Workshop)
50%: Seminar

Assessment

100%: Written assessment (Essay)

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 20 hours of contact time and about 130 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.