“European Identities, Languages and Cultures Forum: Research Methods in EU Studies for the Humanities” (0,5 ects)
1st edition: October 2019 to June 2020 (five 3-hour sessions plus one oral presentation). Download Module Brochure.
2nd edition: November 2020 to June 2021 (five 3-hour sessions plus one oral presentation). Download Module Brochure.
Target: TFG-students
Language: English
Methodology: In-class teaching.
Dates and schedule: Events page.
Aims: This module deals with some basic aspects of EU-studies as a multidisciplinary research area. Participants will be introduced to new avenues of research within the general field of ‘European emotions’, understood as the analysis and description of general European values, attitudes, interests and goals. This course is designed to engage students in a discourse on the various research methods used in social science in the backdrop of cultural sensitivities that one works with and also the ethical frameworks in which one functions. This course emphasizes on appropriateness of the method employed to the study in question, giving both qualitative and quantitative approaches their due share of attention. It is meant to prepare students of all specializations in the program and hence, will focus on foundation of social sciences, research design, data collection, and data analysis. Critical ethical issues in research will also be discussed in detail.
Contents: This is an introductory course to reasearch in European Union studies for the Humanities. The course programme includes, but is not limited to, the following:
• Foundations of research in social sciences;
• Introduction to various types of research methods and their applications in respective fields;
• Review of literature, and the protocols associated with it;
• Research planning – identifying a problem for research, understanding and measuring concepts, scales of measurements and indices;
• Collecting the relevant data and processing it;
• Probability and non-probability sampling methods;
• Analysis of data, introduction to basic statistical analysis and hypothesis testing;
• Interviewing, observation and focus group discussions;
• Text analysis – interpretive analysis, discourse analysis, grounded theory, content analysis;
• Triangulation;
• Ethics in research.
Research outcomes: By the end of the module, participants will deliver orally a piece of research on EU-studies. Their research will be evaluated by an external panel. Some of these outcomes will be published online (with ISBN) in this website.