Aims

The aim of the lectures and practical course work is to ensure that students acquire an ability to produce and analyse Social Sciences data qualitatively.
By the end of the course, students should be able to:
- specify the type of problem-question for which it would be relevant to adopt the various methods studied in the course;
- discuss the relevance of the various data production mechanisms
- make intelligent use of the principal instruments of data production and analysis

Main themes

The course has four components:
1. Introduction to research logic
2. Ethnographic observation
3. The semi-directing interview
4. Thematic analysis

Content and teaching methods

In part 1 of the course, students will be introduced to research logic, through a demonstration of the inherently constructed nature of any type of data. This introduction will cover: the primacy of the initial research question, the hypothesis-concepts-indicators sequence and population selection.
The second part of the course deals with ethnographic observation, the semi-directing interview and the thematic analysis method. For each instrument of data production and analysis, this involves showing the underlying postulates, the conditions and limits on their use, the questions they make it possible to solve, and correct interpretation of analyses. Care is taken to show the diversity of the conditions of application of the techniques and methods studied (interviews with people at the fringe of society and members of the elite, thematic analysis of interviews and texts).
In the thematic analysis exercises carried out in class, Nvivo computer software is used.
The course alternates between theoretical lectures and practical examples with commentary: these are done within the practical exercise sessions.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Course entry requirements: This course expands on the Study Skills Seminar which students therefore need to have taken before they take this course. It prepares the ground for the Practical Research in Sociology and Anthropology Seminar and the Practical Research in Political Science Seminar.
Evaluation: Certificated evaluation: the course will be evaluated according to the objectives set, either through a written examination testing students' understanding of the conditions of application of the methods studied in the course and their ability to analyse data correctly, or via a piece of individual work produced within the framework of the course and which measures students' capacity to successfully put into practice the techniques and methods presented during the course.
Developmental evaluation: during the course and the exercise session, students will be given a number of exercises so that they can evaluate themselves on an ongoing basis.
Course materials: Students are given course notes written by the teachers; a copy of the OHP transparencies used in the course; a reading portfolio containing articles presenting or related to the methods studied in class; a computer file of the texts analysed in the thematic analysis part of the course on which students can practise.

Other credits in programs