Continue to Learn Methods
by Janet Salmons, PhD Manager, Sage Research Methods Community
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and join us for a lively discussion!
We take research methods courses as students in Masters or doctoral programs. Once we are out of school, the scholarly world does not remain fixed in the time frame of our student days. There are emerging methods and theories, new tools and technologies. Problems and populations might have changed, and pressing social needs of a different time that call on us to adapt research approaches. In other words, we need to keep learning! Hopefully,
How do practicing researchers acquire new skills?
What kinds of learning opportunities do organizations and companies in the research field offer? What pedagogical approaches are used, what works best, why? To explore these questions I turned to people who have a lot of experience in service to researchers, academic writers, educators, educational technologists, and students:
Andy Nobes, INASP and AuthorAid (UK). AuthorAID is a project run by UK non-profit international development organisation INASP (International Network for Advancing Science and Policy),1 which supports a community of early career researchers, focusing mainly on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
Dr. Nicola Pallitt, IRCEES and Rhodes University (South Africa) and Tony Carr, e/merge Africa / University of Cape Town (South Africa). The International Research Collaborative for Established and Emerging Scholars (IRCEES) offers resources and peer-to-peer connections. IRCEES is a collaborative research initiative that came about through an affiliation between the e/merge Africa2 network and the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT).3 The e/merge Africa network became affiliated to the AECT in 2016, and the IRCEES initiative started in 2017.
Dr. Janet Salmons, Sage Methodspace, now the Sage Research Methods Community.
Andy, Nicola, Tony, and I designed and conducted a multiple case study. We expanded the study to include the Textbook and Academic Authors Association (TAA) and Lumivero’s NVivo community, whose representatives participated in in-depth interviews and shared background on their programming. TAA is a professional society that offers resources and collegiality for those who write books and articles. The NVivo community extends beyond training on their qualitative data analysis software to focus more broadly on methodologies and methods.
Let’s dig into the cases!
Three broad what, why, and how questions allowed us to look at each case, and to compare across cases. In addition to the practical, programmatic information, we looked at the learning theories and pedagogies that guide our decisions. . We looked at the sources of methods knowledge, from experts, thought leaders, and/or peers. We looked at motivations for providing the kinds of information and learning activities they offer, and constraints experienced by each organization.
We hope you will join us for a webinar on February 8th to hear about our discoveries and ask any questions. This webinar is relevant whether you work for an organization or run your own consultancy and want to serve the research community, you teach or guide new researchers, or you are someone who wants to find out about learning opportunities you can use to develop your own research expertise.
The research team explored these three main questions in the context of each organization’s efforts to provide research methods resources, instruction, and support.
Handbook of Teaching and Learning Social Research Methods
Learn more about teaching and learning research methods!
Learn more about our analysis and findings in a chapter titled “Teaching research methods online: informal or semi-formal professional development” which is included in the Handbook of Teaching and Learning Social Research Methods (2023), edited by Melanie Nind. See the opening chapter by Dr. Nind, Chapter 1: Introduction to the handbook: putting pedagogic models to work in research methods education.
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This blog post is the eighth, and final, post in a follow-on to our 2021 “The future of computational social science is Black” series, about a Summer Institute in Computational Social Science organized by Howard University and Mathematica. It continues to bring the power of computational social science to the issues of systemic racism and inequality in America. This marks the third iteration of the successful SICSS model being hosted by a Historically Black College or University.