Social Research Methods H (8901.4)

This unit is intended to complement students' Honours dissertation research. It is intended for students who are undertaking a research project in a social research discipline. Students will critically examine key social research methodologies. They will also reflect on the ontological and epistemological assumptions of different approaches to social research, and the main ethical issues they raise. The overall purpose of the unit is to assist and provoke students to become more informed and reflective researchers and practitioners.

Learning outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:
1. Demonstrate a critical understanding of the main approaches to social research;
2. Demonstrate a critical understanding of the fundamental epistemological, methodological, and ethical issues involved in undertaking social research at the Honours level;
3. Reflect critically upon their own research practice, and place it within its broader theoretical context; and
4. Demonstrate skills in, and understanding of, the process of undertaking social research.

Graduate attributes

1. UC graduates are professional - communicate effectively
1. UC graduates are professional - display initiative and drive, and use their organisation skills to plan and manage their workload
1. UC graduates are professional - employ up-to-date and relevant knowledge and skills
1. UC graduates are professional - take pride in their professional and personal integrity
1. UC graduates are professional - use creativity, critical thinking, analysis and research skills to solve theoretical and real-world problems
1. UC graduates are professional - work collaboratively as part of a team, negotiate, and resolve conflict
2. UC graduates are global citizens - adopt an informed and balanced approach across professional and international boundaries
2. UC graduates are global citizens - behave ethically and sustainably in their professional and personal lives
2. UC graduates are global citizens - communicate effectively in diverse cultural and social settings
2. UC graduates are global citizens - make creative use of technology in their learning and professional lives
2. UC graduates are global citizens - think globally about issues in their profession
2. UC graduates are global citizens - understand issues in their profession from the perspective of other cultures
3. UC graduates are lifelong learners - adapt to complexity, ambiguity and change by being flexible and keen to engage with new ideas
3. UC graduates are lifelong learners - be self-aware
3. UC graduates are lifelong learners - evaluate and adopt new technology
3. UC graduates are lifelong learners - reflect on their own practice, updating and adapting their knowledge and skills for continual professional and academic development

Skills development

This unit provides an orientation to the act of conducting academic research in design and the creative arts, and is co-taught with honours and postgraduate methods units in Humanities and in Creative Arts and Design. It is in two parts. The first involves the whole cohort across these various methods units in collective activity, and extends over weeks 1-7. We start by investigating the ways made objects—whether physical, virtual or abstract—serve to facilitate or impede certain behaviours, for certain subjects. Doing so will provide us with a cogent, cross-disciplinary language for social and individual action, one that is now widely shared among the humanities, the social sciences and the various fields of design. That is to say, we will analyse objects in terms of their "affordances." For some students, this terminology will do service in the dissertations they submit at the end of the honours year. For others, it will offer something of an intellectual warm-up, by way of an introduction to social analysis. A second, collective investigation will focus on the concept of "interestingness." We will look at the types of phenomena that tend to elicit a sense of interest in their readers and audiences, and we will explore strategies for generating interest in your own research projects and artefacts. One of the things we will discover is that "interestingness" is invariably accompanied by a desire to know. As such, this component of the unit is geared to help you hone your research question.

The second part of the unit extends over weeks 9-12. We will break into discipline-based cohorts (most likely: Creative Arts/Practice-Led; WIL/Compton School; Humanities; Social Research). In small groups and/or one-to-one sessions, we will focus on issues specific to each discipline and/or project. For students producing Creative Arts theses on the exegesis + artefact model, this will involve dispensing with a pre-established model of what your exegesis might look like, in favour of discovering the right fit in each individual case. For students in the Work-Integrated-Learning (WIL) stream, it will involve guided readings on and extensive discussion of creative collaboration.

Prerequisites

None

Corequisites

Students must be enrolled in 298JA Bachelor of Arts and Design (Honours) OR 922AA Bachelor of Arts (Honours).

Incompatible units

None

Equivalent units

7640 Advanced Communication Theory and Research

Assumed knowledge

None.