Social Research Design: Matching questions, methodes, and theory - Single View

The course will address strategies and challenges involved in drawing conceptual conclusions about empirical phenomena. Research design specifies the evidence needed to answer a question, to test or develop a theory, or to accurately describe a social phenomenon. It draws the researcher’s attention to core concerns involved in empirical inquiry, including matters of a) identifying good (answerable and revealing) research questions, b) operationalizing concepts, c) selecting a sample or case(s) that allow for theorization, d) drawing inferences, both descriptive and causal, and e) establishing to what extent findings generated are reliable, valid, and generalizable. Research design as such is not associated with a particular method of data collection and can use quantitative as well as qualitative data. It pertains to the mode of inquiry, to systematically linking theoretical argument and empirical observation. Research design therefore is about logic, not logistics.

During the course, different research designs applied by sociologist will be introduced and examined with regard to their particularities as approaches to studying social phenomena.

Alford, R.R. 1998. The Craft of Inquiry – Theories, Methods, Evidence. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

della Porta, D. and Keating, M. (Eds.) 2008. Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Goertz, G. and Mahoney, J. 2012. A Tale of Two Cultures: Qualitative and Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Yin, 2009. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

*All required readings will be made available on Moodle.