Core principles of research methodology

The contents of this course comprise all phases of an empirical study, from the specification of its aim, through case selection and measurement decisions, to the production of the study’s results, their interpretation and their reporting. The course is structured around current and emerging themes and debates in the methodological literature. Current research routines and their alternatives will be discussed and critically assessed using literature in which competing approaches are presented and justified or criticized. The course provides the participants with up to date methodological knowledge which helps them to critically (re-)consider their decisions regarding methodology.

A tentative overview of the contents of each of the 10 sessions will be discussed in the first session of the course.

When enrolling for the course, participants submit a one-page summary of the research methodology used in their doctoral research (conducted and/or planned) and a short list of methodological topics or problems they would like to discuss in this course.

As the precise contents of this course will be further specified in discussion with the participants in the first session of the course, only tentative suggestions for reading can be given before the start of the course. Participants in the course will be involved in determining relevant texts in the literature in their own discipline.

Henry E. Brady and David Collier (Eds.) (2004), Rethinking Social Inquiry, Rowman & Littlefield.

Harris Cooper, Larry V. Hedges, and Jeffrey C. Valentine (Eds.) (2009), The Handbook of Research Synthesis and Meta-Analysis (2nd Edition), Russell Sage Foundation.

Geoff Cumming (2012), Understanding the New Statistics, Routledge.

Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett (2005), Cases Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, MIT Press.

Gary Goertz (2006), Social Science Concepts. A User’s Guide, Princeton University Press.

Rex B. Kline (2009), Becoming a Behavioral Science Researcher, The Guildford Press.

A.T. Panter and Sonya K. Sterba (Eds.) (2011), Handbook of Ethics in Quantitative Methodology, Routledge.

Carsten Q. Schneider and Claudius Wagemann (2012), Set-Theoretic Methods for the Social Sciences, Cambridge University Press.