School of Government Research Methods

Academics discussing topics at a 2019 reseacrh seminarThe School of Government has made a priority of intensifying research method-related activity and strengthening methodological support. 

‘Research methods’ is understood in the broadest possible sense as comprising methods of data collection and analysis, methodology and research philosophy, research design, ethics and the actual practice of doing research. By staff and PhD students together around research methods, the aim is to:

  • create more opportunities for tapping into a broad base of methodological expertise and interests,
  • facilitating interdisciplinary conversations and connections, strengthening relationships across career stages,
  • encouraging reflection and innovation.
  • enhance the quality of research conducted in the School as well as REF performance.

The School Research Methods Lead is responsible for organising an annual programme of activities based on a mix of formats and directed to a diversity of methodological interests and areas of expertise. 

School Research Methods Lead
Dr Koen Bartels
Senior Lecturer in Public Management
Institute of Local Government Studies
Email: k.p.r.bartels@bham.ac.uk

Resources

Canvas page
On this dedicated Canvas page you can find Panopto recordings and materials of previous activities. You can also participate in online seminars and workshops that are organised each year for people unable to attend campus-based ones.

School Writing/Research Buddy Scheme
Details to be confirmed

Advanced Methods Training courses
The core elements of the programme are delivered by staff across the entire College, many of whom are engaged in cutting-edge research in their own fields. 

Programme of events

School Research Methods programme 2019-2020

Thu 3 Oct 2019
1.30-3pm

Muirhead Tower
Lunch from 12.30 on 10th Floor Muirhead Tower

 

 

Methods Café
Organised by Dr Catherine Durose (INLOGOV)

An innovation away from the standard format of speaker-and-audience, the methods cafe provides a structured but informal means to share methods that we have used in our own research and with our PhD students. In the context of induction, the aims are to give our new PhD students the opportunity to discuss the methods they want to use in their research, encourage methodological curiosity and innovation, open up horizons and conversations about different methods, and give a sense of the diversity and vibrancy of research in the School.

Round 1 will include the following tables and specialists:

  • Dan Silver: photovoice
  • Koen Bartels: action research
  • Sotirios Zartaloudis: process tracing
  • Natascha Neudorfer: quantitative methods (regressions for: surveys, cross-sectional, time-series cross-sectional, and panel analysis)
  • Emma Foster: discourse analysis

Round 2:

  • Louise Reardon: elite interviewing
  • Koen Bartels: grounded theory
  • Charlotte Galpin: media analysis
  • Dan Silver: life history interviewing
  • Sotirios Zartaloudis: quantitative discourse analysis

Wed 6 Nov 2019
2-3pm

Muirhead Tower 715

Seminar – Reflexive Research Practice in the University: Boundaries, Expertise and Expectations
Professor Tim May (University of Sheffield)

The landscape of social scientific work is changing. Funders now routinely expect impact and engagement to be demonstrated, along with the relevance of the work to difference ‘users’ or ‘stakeholders’.  Accompanying this is a trend to move understanding beyond disciplinary boundaries towards inter-disciplinary practices, along with an expectation to deepen understanding of different ways of knowing through the application of techniques with implications for the forms of justification traditionally deployed in knowledge production. For those who take the idea of engagement into practice seriously, they can be left to mediate between conflicting expectations - particularly when recognising and seeking to incorporate varying forms of justification in the research process.

This talk will examine these issues. It will focus on the importance of methodological considerations including how allusions to the technicality of method can undermine valuable insights through bracketing the context and potential consequences of research. Towards that end it draws upon the experiences of being a researcher in order to constitute a career, but also to demonstrate the importance of research for different organisations and generate income for organisational reproduction at the boundaries of credibility and applicability and excellence and relevance. The talk asks what we can expect of reflexive practices in the relations between the content of our work and the context in which we work. In the process, it poses questions about academic identity, career structures and the future of the university as a distinctive site of knowledge production.

SEMESTER 2

Thu 9 Jan 2020
1-3pm

Main Library
4th floor training room

Workshop – SPSS
Provided by the Library Digital Skills Team

This workshop is an advanced introduction/refresher course on how to use SPSS and what for.

It will help participants understand how to prepare data for analysis (code data, define variables, input raw data), use the SPSS Statistics Data Editor window (perform an analysis on a subset of cases, split file into separate groups for analysis, splitter control), analyse data using basic descriptives statistics (frequency tables, crosstabs, descriptives table, recode into different variables), create and edit a chart, and conduct basic regression analyses.

Wed 15 Jan 2020
2-3pm

Canvas

Online reflective practice - SPSS

For everyone unable to attend the SPSS workshop on campus and/or interested in more advanced discussion, this seminar will give a recap of the workshop and facilitate a conversation about concrete statistical projects, challenges, and practices to enable mutual joint reflection and learning.

Wed 29 Jan 2020
1-2pm

Muirhead Tower 429
Including lunch

 

Reflective practice – How to select and access case studies

How to select and access case studies is one of the key issues of social research. We face many different issues with doing case study research and use approaches to deal with these. This meeting will facilitate a peer conversation about experiences with concrete case study projects, challenges, and practices to enable mutual joint reflection and learning.

Mon 3 Feb 2020
1-2pm

Canvas

 

Online reflective practice - How to select and access case studies

For everyone unable to attend the reflective practice on campus, this meeting will facilitate a conversation about concrete case study projects, challenges, and practices to enable mutual joint reflection and learning.

Wed 26 Feb 2020
12-1pm

Muirhead Tower 415
Including lunch

Work in progress seminar - Comparative political finance: Towards a unified approach for measuring and categorising political finance systems
William Horncastle - POLSIS

Economic research has suggested that nations with high levels of financial inequality are likely to engage with policy aimed at the needs of society’s rich. Theories into why this may be so are often concerned with the power of political campaign contributions, with disparities in the volume and size of monetary contributions potentially providing a market for personal access to policymakers and ‘cash for policy’ exchanges.

According to the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, all nations now utilise ‘at least some regulations concerning political finance’. Research exists which aims to measure how different approaches to political finance regulation impact a variety of issues, however there is no unified approach to quantitative comparison of political finance systems.

This paper aims to address this issue. By applying a Factor Analysis model to the International IDEA ‘Political Finance Database’, a quantitative measurement tool is created. Evidence is found to suggest that a one-dimensional scale is not appropriate, with a two-dimensional approach separating regulation focused on reducing corruption from that which aims to increase equality. In measuring across two dimensions, the potential for excessive reductionism is reduced. Finally, a dataset is produced for 177 nations, providing a tool for future research in this area.

Tue 10 Mar 2020

12-2pm

Muirhead Tower 113
Lunch from 11:30

Workshop – Introducing Social Network Analysis
Proffessor Nick Crossley (University of Manchester)

In this session, I will offer a brief overview of social network analysis as a method, introduce a few basic key concepts and software packages, and discuss both some of my own uses of the method and a number of classic studies.

May 2020

Day, time and location tbc

Workshop critical archival research
Organised by Prof Pete Burnham and Darcy Luke (POLSIS)

Details TBC

 

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