Introduction to Systematic Literature Search and Network Analysis for Literature Review

Online
Attendance: 75 / 75

This workshop introduces students to systematic literature search on the Web of Science, analysing citation data, and citation network analysis for literature exploration. The primary purpose of this short course is to provide the skills and understanding necessary to pursue literature-based research projects. Originally designed for biomedical students at the University of Edinburgh, this course is now being made freely available for the SGSSS Summer School. The basic principles of review, systematic literature search, citation analysis, and the network analyses outlined throughout are generally transferable to most topics in the social sciences.

Introduction to Repeated Measures Designs for Social Sciences

Online
Attendance: 56 / 60

Repeated measures designs from longitudinal studies are useful methods for examining how traits or behaviours change over time, why and for who. They are an effective method for expanding upon cross-sectional and panel designs and can be used to help improve inferences in fields such as psychology, medicine, epidemiology, sociology, education and public health. This workshop is aimed at participants from any of those disciplines (or others) who are interested in examining how things change over time and why. This workshop would be particularly useful for participants who are interested in Secondary Data Analysis (SDA).

Using Creative Methods in Qualitative Research

Online
Attendance: 46 / 46

This is an informative, fun and interactive session that introduces you to what we mean by creative methods, and offers guidance on why, when and how you might use them in your research. It starts with an introduction to creative methods and how they relate to epistemological and ontological positions. Melanie Lovatt and Valerie Wright will then facilitate two interactive sessions - you can choose which one to take part in. One will focus on using fictional novels as a way to elicit new ways of thinking about the future. The other will consider how theatre can help to identify narratives of oppression and discrimination, and facilitate alternative narratives of resistance. By the end of the session you will have a greater understanding of how creative methods can generate new ways of sociological thinking, and how you might practically use them in your research.

Researching is Emotional: Building Your Research Care Package

Online via Zoom
Attendance: 46 / 46

This workshop aims to create a space where we can discuss, with freedom and peer-support, a range of ethical issues that we could encounter during fieldwork, and a range of issues that make doing research more difficult. Some of the examples we draw upon may sound unusual, others will be very familiar. We will also how the traditional isolationist nature of PhD work, results in us individualising experience and internalising issues as a personal-failure. Given the context of academia, this workshop aims to offer possible frameworks of support.

Undertaking a Systematic Literature Review

Online
Attendance: 47 / 46

This session will be led by Dr Anna Robb, Dr Beth Hannah and Dr Alexia Barrable. It will focus on systematic approaches for literature reviews. The session will consist of an overview of the systematic literature process, followed by a presentation where three researchers will discuss how they have put this into their practice, ending with a Q&A session. ​

Working with Potentially Vulnerable Groups: Some Methodological and Ethical Considerations

Online via Zoom
Attendance: 46 / 46

This session will consider some of the key methodological and ethical issues that you might need to think about when working with potentially vulnerable groups. We will begin by considering the concept of vulnerability and what might make some of our participants vulnerable before going on to explore in detail some of the methodological and ethical safeguards we might put in place to ensure our research is as inclusive and participatory as possible.

Life History Research: How History Shapes Lives

Online via Zoom
Attendance: 46 / 46

The workshop will consist of a synchronously delivered lecture followed by breakout groups in which participants will be able to relate issues raised in the presentation to their own research. Whether you are still at the research design stage or are busy with data analysis and whether or not you intend to undertake life history research after all, the session will help you reflect on rigour in qualitative interviewing, how we go from the individual to the more general, how we narrate our lives, and crucially how culture and history inflect research participants' narrations. Ultimately the session will aim to remind novice researchers of the critical dimension of qualitative research and how it can make visible social change and agency.

Decolonising our Practice in Qualitative (Health) Research

Online
Attendance: 40 / 46

During this session, we will hear from Johannah Keikelame, who will discuss her own work on decolonising research methodologies, how she came to think and write about these issues, and lessons learned from a qualitative research project she was involved in in Cape Town, South Africa.  This session will include a live Q and A session with Johannah, where students will have the opportunity to ask questions on this topic area to inform your own thinking and research practice.  In addition, we will discuss approaches to decolonising research and how it applies to all aspects of the research process, from conceptualisation to dissemination and sustainability of research.

Truth claiming – avoiding ‘atrocity stories’ and ‘poverty safaris’: a facilitated discussion of how we orientate ourselves toward qualitative data using two case studies

Online
Attendance: 46 / 46

The purpose of this workshop is to understand different ways for researchers to orientate themselves toward qualitative data and, in particular, to consider different ways of being 'truthful' to those data. The facilitators will use two extended examples from their own work (an interview study of women's experiences of GP encounters following domestic abuse and a comparative ethnography of men's experiences of the social determinants of health). We focus on two types of practice that are positioned as risks within the literature: telling 'atrocity stories' and going on 'poverty safaris'. We will use our own examples to develop structured exercises for workshop participants and will have time for participants to reflect on their own qualitative data orientation.

Natural Experiments in the Social Sciences

Online via Microsoft Teams

This session will introduce the use of natural experiments in the social sciences to provide potentially stronger evidence for causal claims than in observational quantitative studies. The training will describe why study design matters for causal claims and will present a selection of case-studies that employ natural experiments. Students will be introduced to the quantitative techniques used to analyse natural experiments and will provided with a hands on opportunity to apply a differences in differences analysis. Students will use Stata and must be familiar with this software (including the use of syntax) and have experience and understanding of generalised linear models. The training will be delivered through pre-recorded videos although the instructor will run a live online introduction at the start and a Q&A at the end. Some pre-course reading will be provided.