Designing Social Research (L4125)

15 credits, Level 5

Autumn teaching

On this module you'll explore foundational principles and practices of social research, from project design through to empirical practice. You'll engage with a range of methods and methodologies, which will strengthen your applied research skills. This will also improve the quality and rigour of your academic work across your degree.

You'll study:

  • research design
  • interviews
  • focus groups
  • (auto-) ethnography
  • surveys
  • visual
  • digital
  • archival methods.

We underpin our teaching with questions of effectiveness, appropriateness, and ethics.

Teaching

50%: Lecture
50%: Seminar

Assessment

100%: Practical (Portfolio)

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 20 hours of contact time and about 130 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 2025/26. 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.

Courses

This module is offered on the following courses: