methods@manchester: research methods in the social sciences

Workshops

These events focus on particular methods or resources and provide an opportunity for discussion and exchange.

Wednesday 9 May 2012 & Wednesday 16 May 2012

Engaging Qualitative Material - two linked half day workshops

Workshop 1 - Engaging Qualitative Material: coping with writer’s anxiety
Wednesday 9th May, 2-5pm, Room G.035/036, Arthur Lewis Building

Workshop 2 - Engaging Qualitative Material: coping with reader’s anxiety
Wednesday 16th May, 2-5pm, Room G.019 Arthur Lewis Building

More details

These two interrelated workshops start from an assumption that it is easier to make qualitative observations – gather our ‘raw’ material – than it is to theoretically account for how we think about the observations – raise ideas from a database. If valid, would the assumption imply additional care for presenting a text so it will be viewed as legitimate . . .?

Workshop 1 addresses this challenge from an analytic angle. It offers hands-on practice and frameworks for encountering inductive choicepoints in qualitative analysis. Workshop 2 addresses the challenge of invoking a tone and presenting some devices which can help re-assure examiners or reviewers the contribution at hand is worthy of serious consideration.


Thursday 17 May 2012

Discourse Analysis Workshop - Language, Hidden Meanings and Power

A workshop exploring the opportunities offered by ‘critical discourse analysis’
to shed light and add further insight to policy analyses

We all know how powerful language can be – think about Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream” or Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” as examples of the words people use that have an impact on public consciousness. However, it is not only this type of front-page grabbing rhetoric which has an effect on how people think and act – all of us are continually exposed to language used in ways which are designed, overtly or covertly, to shape our day to day lives and how we think. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a method developed by linguists for analysing this language, or ‘discourse’, and trying to unpick the assumptions and hidden meanings behind it.

More details


Wednesday 25 - Friday 27 July 2012

General data analysis using generalized linear models - a 3-day workshop.

More details and booking will be available soon.


Thursday 2 - Friday 3 August 2012

Postgraduate Researcher Student Conference 2012:
The Impact of Educational Research Methods on Developing the Postgraduate Researcher

Roscoe Building, University of Manchester

More details

Booking form

This is an exciting event that brings together postgraduate researchers working in the broad fields of education and include the following programmes: PhD, DCounsPsych, DEdPsy, EdD, DEdChPsychol, and MSc. This conference is intended to promote current discussion and new developments in educational research across disciplines with particular emphasis on examining its impact on policy, teaching and learning.

Registration closes 13 July 2012.

Call for papers/posters: Please visit the Postgraduate Researcher Blog for detailed information about conference themes and submission, the conference schedule or for more information about the PGRs at the School of Education.


Details of past workshops can be found on the Past Events web page.