Research Design and Ethics (502X8)

15 credits, Level 7 (Masters)

Spring teaching

This research design course is taught by a multi-disciplinary team representing education, law and social work. Examples and perspectives relevant to these disciplines are drawn on. The course also provides a general introduction to methods and methodologies in the design of social research projects. The aim is to provide you with a grounding in the major research traditions and the requirements of research design within a range of paradigms associated with both quantitative and qualitative methods.

In particular the course will focus on distinguishing methodologies and methods; finding a research focus and generating research questions; using quantitative methods in research design; using qualitative methods in research design; combining qualitative and quantitative data in research design; ethical issues in social research with special reference to professional settings and post modernity and social research.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 18 hours of contact time and about 132 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2021/22. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.