Title:
Qualitative Research Methods in Social Sciences
Stream:
Development Studies
Description:
History and introduction to qualitative research methods; Philosophical foundations of social science research: critique of positivism and post-positivist approaches; sampling strategies; Methods of data collection: observation, interviewing, case study, focus group discussions, oral histories, archival materials and reading archival texts, ethnography; Data analysis: transcribing, coding, content analysis, reliability and validity, theory building, discourse analysis; Ethical issues in social sciences research; Writing: proposal writing, review of literature, report and dissertation writing, bibliography and references.
Text:
T. May, Social Research: Issues, Methods and Process, Open University Press, 2001. ^$^H. Schwartz and J. Jacobs (eds.), Qualitative Sociology: A Method to the Madness, The Free Press, 2000. ^$^M.N. Srinivas, A.M. Shah and E.A. Ramaswamy (eds.), Fieldworker and the Field: Problems and Challenges in Sociological Investigation, Oxford University Press, 1979. ^$^H. Becker, Writing for Social Scientists, University of Chicago Press, 1984.
