Research Methods

As well as discipline-specific research methods training that may be provided at School level, the GS DRDP offers a range of research methods workshops.

UNDERTAKING DATA COLLECTION/FIELDWORK – AN INTERCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

24th April 2025, Online

Book in Inkpath

When undertaking data collection/fieldwork through, for example, interviews or questionnaires, we are interacting with our informants. These interactions could be on-site or on-line. The willingness of our informants to contribute, the way in which they will interpret our questions and answer them, as well as a myriad of ethical aspects will be influenced by their cultural background. You might be doing fieldwork in a culture you are very familiar with or one that you know only from a distance. At the same time, the way you are framing and phrasing your questions or request for information is influenced by your own cultural background (and that of your supervisory team). This workshop is designed to help you reflect on these important aspects, in order to fully consider cultural perspectives and their implications for your fieldwork. The workshop is open to all doctoral students preparing for their data collection who have already submitted or are about to submit their ethics application.

INTRODUCTION TO RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT

Autumn 2025

This session will provide a general introduction and some practical tips to managing your research data through all stages of the research lifecycle. From drafting a data management plan at the start of your research project or applying for funding, through to publishing, sharing and archiving your research data at the end of your research project, this session will provide an overview to finding and re-using data in your research, working with sensitive data, and where to publish, share and archive data at the end of your research.

This session is suitable for postgraduate students and early career researchers.

Learning Objectives

· Develop an understanding of research data management at all stages of the research lifecycle and why it is important

· Learn some practical tips for managing your research data

· Know where to find support for research data management at the University of Westminster

Recorded ‘Introduction to Research Data Management’ presentation:
Link to Panopto recording

Transcript_Introduction to Research Data Management

DIY RESEARCH DATA MANAGEMENT PLANS – How to Draft a Data Management Plan for your research

Autumn 2025

In this session, postgraduate students will learn how to draft a data management plan (DMP) which can be used in funding applications, but also as part of planning during the research process as part of best practice for research. This session will provide an overview of data management planning and some considerations, and will provide hands-on experience through using a basic DMP template to develop an initial data management plan.

Learning Objectives

· Understand the considerations around handling and managing data at all stages of the research lifecycle

· Understand how to draft a data management plan and develop a template for your own research

NVIVO – INTERMEDIATE LEVEL WORKSHOPS

The GS is pleased to offer this opportunity for doctoral researchers to benefit from tailored training. The series of 3 workshops will be offered twice in the academic year. The workshops will be delivered online (via Zoom).

Learning objectives

By the end of the course, participants will be able to: 

1. Move beyond simple coding to understand how to generate codes, the logic of coding scheme structures and retrieve, review and reorganise coding

2. understand the importance of planning and how to effectively implement analytical strategies and software tactics 

3. identify and interrogate patterns and relationships 

4. visualise data through maps and charts and understand how to visually represent relationships and links

5. understand both the technical and human aspects of team working within NVivo projects.

Who is this course for?

This course is intended to people who have already been using and experience of NVivo and are looking to make sure they are most effectively using the software to its full potential. 

Due to the limit on places, priority will be given to those doctoral researchers who are further along in their studies.

Format and documentation

The workshops are hands-on, delivered thorough a blend of demonstration, discussion, and practical exercises.

Participants are provided with slide decks, reading lists and a range of resources to accompany the course and to support consolidation of the topics covered.

To familiarise yourself with NVIVO first, we suggest viewing this AELD recorded session: Introduction to NVIVO

Places are limited and allocated through an application process.

This sequential series of three workshops will take place on:
31st March, 1st April, and 2nd April

Applications Open: 13th January 2025
Application Deadline: 5pm, 17th March 2025

APPLICATION FORM: NVIVO-Workshops-24-25-Semester-2-Application-Form

ETHNOGRAPHY AS A RESEARCH METHOD

28th February, 21st March and 9th May, Harrow campus

In this specially curated workshop series for the GS, Miriyam  Aouragh (Professor of Digital Anthropology) introduces Digital Ethnography. Politics, culture, society, information, media and communication are all produced and reproduced within their wider context. But over the past decades this context is inevitably transformed by internet technology. There is growing demand for advanced research and analytical skills about the impact of digital technologies on society. This includes data, algorithms and smartphones, but also the relationship between our online and offline lives. 

With a special focus on the changing infrastructural realities of social life, Aouragh will demonstrate how best to explore digital communities, online spaces, internet activist, citizen journalists, visual archives, transnational art collectives or architectural virtual sites. This short course consists of three workshops and offers an engaging training in the fundamentals of social scientific inquiry related to digital ethnography. 

Ethnography is about learning first-hand about the behaviour of groups, cultural interactions, or dreams and dilemmas of collectives and how to consider a particular research objective through intersectional lenses. Ethnographers immerses themselves in a social environment and observe the kind of unseen, authentic or spontaneous dynamics that we do not get from a survey or data analysis. Ethnographies as (mostly written) output is unique in how it ‘studies up’, approach big questions through small places as the expression goes. They do not only helps us understand the way people interact with the world around them; they are also very reflective. 

Due to the particular history of the discipline as well as the subjective levels in analyses, it is explicitly transparant. This means that it discusses its main epistemic inspirations at the outset and delineates the empirical tools at every stages of the research. Doing so, it acknowledges how the (power) relation between researcher and interlocutor as well as the objective conditions have shaped the process and results of the study. For this reason, ethnography emphasises the scholarly and academic rules of engagement in terms of ethical paradigms and ethical conduct.

This program is divided into three workshops:

Part 1: 28 February 14.00-15.30, Harrow campus Book in Inkpath

The Part 1 workshop will explore how ethnography evolved to help understand how this  research approach has gone through different theoretical and practical stages and evolved into digital ethnography; 

Part 2: 21 March 14.00-15.30, Harrow campus Book in Inkpath

The Part 2 workshop will discuss the most interesting real life examples and empirical case studies that relate to ethnographic models. How does the circulation of online content relate to pre-existing forms of community and belonging? The way people interact with the world around them and the way groups form communities in and through digital infrastructures are discussed through an intersectional lense; 

Part 3: 9 May 14.00-15.30, Harrow campus Book in Inkpath

The Part 3 workshop will discern the main epistemic roots tools of anthropology in order to understand the unique relation between ethnography and ethics, and in due course understand which moral, political and social boundaries ethnography produces, or conversely, puts into question. After workshop 2 you will be asked to identify digital “field” or “kinship” defined through your own doctoral research framework and undertake repeated observations of the (digital) interactions and activities. During workshop #3 we will discuss these observations, analyse different aspects of the data collected, and design a potential conceptual approach that fit the analysis of your own project. This application is meant to entice you to expose your own PhD project to creative experimentation with anthropological modes of inquiry as discussed during workshop 1, but also intended to foster reflexivity about ethics, which we will discuss in more detail during workshop 3.

FOCUS GROUPS AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

21st May 2025, 10.00am-3.00pm, Regent Street
Book in Inkpath

In this one day course (with Part 1 in the morning and Part 2 in the afternoon), students will be introduced to both the basics and new thinking in qualitative research. The course is suitable for the beginner and those looking to refresh their knowledge.

Part 1 – Building a project

defining your objective
developing a sample
writing a screener
devising a methodology
writing a discussion guide

PART 2 – Delivering a project

focus group best practice
behavioural economics and the focus group
projective techniques
effective reporting

ETHNOGRAPHY SERIES RECAP

30th May 2025, 2pm – 3:30pm, Online

Book in Inkpath

In a specially curated workshop series for the GS, Miriyam  Aouragh (Professor of Digital Anthropology) introduced Digital Ethnography. This session serves as a recap/summary of the core content.

Politics, culture, society, information, media and communication are all produced and reproduced within their wider context. But over the past decades this context is inevitably transformed by internet technology. There is growing demand for advanced research and analytical skills about the impact of digital technologies on society. This includes data, algorithms and smartphones, but also the relationship between our online and offline lives. 

With a special focus on the changing infrastructural realities of social life, Aouragh will demonstrate how best to explore digital communities, online spaces, internet activist, citizen journalists, visual archives, transnational art collectives or architectural virtual sites.

Ethnography itself has gone through different stages as tools for methodologies and as a key pillar for qualitative research. A basic principle for social scientists is to study social phenomena or events through a holistic approach. But what does this mean, and how best to do critical research in a non-reductive and a critical way? One crucial condition is to understand our research and its interlocutors as part and parcel of the cultures around them. The impact of digital media is unprecedented: whether familiar concepts in ethnography (community, kinship, friendship) or the relation between commodity circulation and capitalist value, they have transformed in a world of ever-increasing social media connectivity and cloud computation. Is culture becoming more homogeneous now that over billion people worldwide have a social media profile, but what the local contexts? What are the links between algorithms and agency?

‘ZINE-ING IS BELIEVING: EXPLORING ZINES FOR RESEARCH PURPOSES

2nd July 2025, 1.00pm-4.00pm, Regent Street

Book in Inkpath

Zines – are typically non-commercial self-published print works produced in small batches. Their content can vary, and its origins are said to be traced back to American science fiction fans in the 1930s, the term zine, is said to be short for ‘fan magazine’. 

Since its creation, it has become a medium that has been used by many to explore many different topics and interests. It is a great creative outlet and has also become a rich source for understanding social historical contexts and it provides an ‘alternative’ voice to mainstream media and allows marginalised voices to also present their worldview. 

This session run by Ka-Ming from the AELD team is a unique opportunity to engage with a zine collection, explore more creative ways to research and reflect on research.

It includes: 

· Opportunity to explore a small selection of zines to get a sense of the variety and variation within the medium 

· Introductory talk on how zines can potentially be used to reflect on the research process or as a research method. 

· Hands-on zine making with materials provided by the facilitator. 

QUANTITATIVE METHODS AND ANALYSIS TRAINING

These two workshops build on one another, guiding you through the process of designing an empirical study and analysing the findings with basic statistics as well as more advanced statistics. Doctoral researchers need to make an application for attendance on these workshops.

Application Form: Stats-Workshops-25-Application-Form-final

Please submit your application to: graduateschool@westminster.ac.uk by 5pm, Thursday 27^th February 2025

Workshop 1 – Design of Empirical Research Studies with Human Participants

7th March 2025

This workshop aims to give a broad overview of designing empirical research studies with human participants, covering research questions, sampling and required sample size (power analysis), choice of variables and measurement techniques, as well as design of experimental and correlational studies. It also provides a theoretical basis for techniques which may be practised during practical exercises.

• Introduction to the design of empirical research studies: experimental and correlational studies; experimental controls; selection and recruitment of subjects; piloting; ethical considerations
• Measurement through observation of behaviour: direct and indirect observation; recording techniques; measurement of behaviour; activity sampling
• Measurement through questionnaires and interviews: ranking methods, rating scales, application in interviews and questionnaires
• Good practice in research methods – an overview: ethics, avoiding questionable research practices, open science, preregistration

Workshop 2 – The Basics of Statistical Analysis

21st March 2025

This workshop aims to provide an introduction to basic methods used to analyse data from empirical studies with human participants, describing the key features of the data in a study with scientific language. It explains how to compute descriptive statistics and create graphs to visualise quantitative data as well as how to test hypotheses, covering the most commonly used types of inferential statistics and their assumptions. This workshop will be run with the software package SPSS. This workshop will be run in a modular fashion, where some of those aspects shown in parentheses will be covered, depending on PhD students’ needs and wishes in this teaching year.

• Descriptive statistics
  • Types of data and data management
  • Distributions, esp. normal distribution
  • Central Tendency and Variability
  • Measures of central tendency (mean, median, mode)
  • Measures of variability (range, variance, and standard deviation)
  • The importance of variability
  • (Tables and graphs)

• Testing Hypotheses
  • Probability
  • Null and Alternative Hypothesis
  • Sampling distribution and statistical decision making
  • Statistical significance and confidence intervals
• Inferential statistics

• (Non-parametric tests)
• (Chi Square)
• t-test, ANOVA (ANCOVA, MANOVA)
• Correlation and Multiple Linear Regression

CAMRI RESEARCH METHODS MODULE 2025

These workshop sessions for the 1st-year cohort of CAMRI PhD doctoral researchers focus on the key research skills necessary to conduct a successful doctoral thesis. Discussing the different research traditions and the way they have impacted the media studies field, the perceived difference between ‘quantitative’ and ‘qualitative’ data, different methodological decisions and their impact on your research design and data collection. (While aimed at CAMRI doctoral researchers, those undertaking interdisciplinary research who would benefit from attending are welcome).

Module information: 2025 CAMRI Research Methods–MODULE HANDBOOK

RESEARCH METHODS MODULES AT MASTERS LEVEL

Doctoral research can sometimes mean that you will need some training in new research methods. The university runs a large number of research methods modules across its many masters programmes and it may be that joining some or all of the seminars of one of these modules will be useful to you. If you think that sitting in on one of these would be useful for your research, please discuss it with your Director of Studies. If you decide together that it would be helpful, then you should contact the Module Leader to ask if they would be happy for you to sit in on the class.

You can find the lists of research methods modules on the link below:

INFORMATION TO FOLLOW