- Docente: Giulia Evolvi
- Credits: 4
- Language: English
- Teaching Mode: In-person learning (entirely or partially)
- Campus: Forli
- Corso: First cycle degree programme (L) in International Studies (cod. 6650)
Learning outcomes
The workshop aims to reconstruct the debate on the Method in the social sciences and aims to offer students a framework of the strategies and techniques of detection and analysis most frequently used in socio-political empirical research.
Course contents
The workshop provides an overview of common qualitative and quantitative approaches to data collection and data analysis in the social sciences.
At the end of the course, which does not presuppose any previous skills, the student:
- Knows how to approach research design, including research questions /hypothesis
- Gains expertise in the main techniques of data collection, including interviews, focus groups, surveys, web scraping, collecting textual databases
- Acquires competences in the main textual analysis approaches, including discourse analysis, thematic analysis, and corpus linguistics
- Attains skills in how to use software tools for computer-assisted data analysis from a digital humanities perspective
- Learns the principles of ethics in research, including reflections on positionality
The workshop is for students new to the topic and offers an overview of approaches and techniques they can employ for both academic research and marketing/UX research.
At the end of the course the student is expected to:
- Build a research design that is appropriate for the research’s aims
- Differentiate between qualitative and quantitative techniques and know their impact on research
- Approach texts in a critical way and understand correlations and causations
Readings/Bibliography
During the workshop several articles will be suggested and discussed in class.
Bibliography:
- Babbie, E. R. (2012). The Practice of Social Research, 13th Edition (13th edition). Cengage Learning.
- Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic Analysis: A practical guide. Sage. https://www.sagepub.com/shop/buy-a-book/thematic-analysis-1-248481
- Di Cristofaro, M. (2023). Corpus Approaches to Language in Social Media. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Corpus-Approaches-to-Language-in-Social-Media/Cristofaro/p/book/9781032125701
- D`ignazio, C., & Klein, L. F. (2020). Data Feminism. MIT Press.
- Fairclough, N. (2010). Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language (2 edizione). Routledge.
Teaching methods
The workshop is organized in 10 lessons of two hours each.
During the first hour the teacher will deliver a frontal lesson outlining and explaining the topics.
During the second hour the class will implement practical exercises where they will experience various data collection and analysis techniques.
Students are expected to actively participate in debates and group work during the class.
Assessment methods
As indicated in the teaching regulations of the study course, attendance of the workshop is compulsory. To certify the effective participation of the students in the lessons, the teacher will collect the signatures of those present at each meeting. To be eligible, the student must attend at least 70% of the lessons.
The workshop does not assign a final grade. At the end of the course the student will be able to obtain eligibility. The verification of the preparation and skills acquired during the workshop activities will take place in written form.
Teaching tools
Analysis software
Office hours
See the website of Giulia Evolvi