Content, progress and pedagogy of the module

Objectives 

• To provide students with an understanding of the main components of a research project including the linkages between problem identification, research questions, methodological choices and research designs.  

• To give students further insight into a variety of social scientific research strategies, including qualitative and quantitative research designs and methods within the field of international relations.  

• To enable students to understand and reflect critically upon various types of research designs.  

• To enable students to select, describe and implement their own methodological choices and research designs addressing their research question, and to communicate their choices in their own project writing. 

Content 

Based on knowledge and understanding of the main components of a research project, students will explore various methodological choices including concrete techniques of data selection, collection and analysis in qualitative and quantitative research. Focus will be on discussing quality criteria in the contexts of both qualitative and quantitative research designs in order to approach academic research designs critically. Emphasis will be placed on how students can apply and critically assess these methods in their own project work, in order to enable students to make well-founded and ethically sound choices in their own project work. Furthermore, students will gain insight into the use of digital tools for qualitative and quantitative data collection, analysis, and referencing, including comsiderations regarding ethics and data protection. 

Learning objectives

Knowledge

• the linkages between problem identification, research questions, methodological choices and research designs 

• qualitative and quantitative social scientific methods within the field of international relations 

• the application of qualitative and quantitative methods to answer international relations research questions 

Skills

• can identify and delimit a research problem and create a research strategy suitable for answering the problem statement 

• can apply their knowledge to select theories that serve the analytical purpose and at the same time remain critical to these theories. 

• can collect empirical data systematically in order to solve a problem and integrate theory and empirical data on an interdisciplinary basis 

• can make well-founded methodological choices in their own work 

• can assess existing research in the field of international relations critically 

Competences

• Can collaborate on project writing in an interdisciplinary team  

• Can structure and clearly communicate knowledge obtained through project work  

• Can critically reflect on and argue for choice of theory, research design and data selection in their project writing  

• Can reflect on ethics and data protection in diverse settings, online as well as offline 

Type of instruction

The module consists of lectures, exercises, student contributions, group work, and supervision 

Exam

Exams