PSIR505 RESEARCH METHODS FOR SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES
| Course Code: | 3540505 |
| METU Credit (Theoretical-Laboratory hours/week): | 3 (3.00 - 0.00) |
| ECTS Credit: | 8.0 |
| Department: | Political Science and International Relations |
| Language of Instruction: | English |
| Level of Study: | Graduate |
| Course Coordinator: | Assoc.Prof.Dr. HANDE SÖZER |
| Offered Semester: | Fall Semesters. |
Course Objectives
At the end of this course, students will
- Learn central concepts, themes, debates and theoretical approaches of research philosophy.
- Develop awareness about major dilemmas related to research ethics.
- Learn ways to design a research project by developing a research problem and identifying advanced research questions.
- Learn various research methods together with their strengths and weaknesses in answering research questions.
- Design and present a tentative research proposal and provide feedback for the peers’ proposals.
Course Content
This course introduces Masters students to the philosophy of social sciences as well as providing some foundations in research methods in social and political sciences. Following a survey of philosophies of social sciences and social enquiry, an introduction to quantitative research techniques and sources is explained before introducing a range of qualitative research techniques and materials. In so doing, all students will then be able to undertake an initial preparation of their thesis topic.
Course Learning Outcomes
At the end of the class, students will
- Learn basic premises of major epistemological approaches to social research such as Positivism, Interpretivism.
- Learn several ontological approaches to social research such as Objectivism, Subjectivism, Constructivism.
- Learn several ethical concerns related to unobtrusive and desktop research (e.g. issues related to representation) and field research (e.g. rapport, informed consent, privacy, anonymity, undetectability).
- Learn issues about the ethics, quality and responsibility in utilizing other researchers' work.
- Identify central topic subtopics, research question and research problem in existing studies and develop those related to their own research projects.
- Examine various forms of literature reviews in existing academic works on MA level and compare their particular purpose, strenght and weaknesses.
- Learn purposes, uses, strenghts and weaknesses of several research designs, such as qualitative, quantitative and mixed research designs.
- Learn experimental cross-sectional, longtitutional, historical, historical-comparative, comparative, case study forms of social research.
- Learn research methods related to primary data gathering and analysis via discourse analysis, content analysis, narrative analysis, as well as secondary data gathering via structured interviews, surveys, semi-structured and unstructured interviews, focus group and participant observation and e-research.
- Develop and present their own research proposals and provide feedback for each other's proposals.