Past events archive

• Working with Twitter
• Methods Session on Critical Thinking
• Methods Session on Data Collection
• A toolkit for exploring musical memories and emotions
• Data Pre-processing
• 4 C’s of Passing: Creating a New Framework to Fit your Research
• Observational sketching as method
• Online Interviews & social media approaches for recruitment
• Making autoethnography
• Discourse Analysis: how and why should I do it?
• Introducing Corpus Approaches to Social Science
• 4th Methods X Conference
• NWSSDTP Workshop on conducting research within ethical boundaries
• Methods session on positionality in qualitative research
• Using Graphic Elicitation Data Gathering Methods with Ex-Offenders
• Flexible Re-design of Cognitive Psychology Research in Response to COVID-19
• Ethnography-informed case study: Practical considerations and tips
• Using archives and historical research in government research: pitfalls and prospects
• Research using social media: Facebook, mumsnet and blogs
• Using the FOI Act to Gather Data – Lessons from Socio-legal research
• Process Tracing Techniques: Innovations to systemetise qualitative research
• Using the FOI Act to Gather Data – Lessons from Socio-legal research
• MethodsX 2019/20 Stream Meeting – Quantitative Methods
• MethodsX 2019/20 Stream Meeting – New Forms of Data/Digital Methods
• MethodsX 2019/20 Stream Meeting – Ethnography
• MethodsX Conference 2020: Hold the Date!
• Methods Fair 2020: The Changing Face of Research
• MethodsX Twitter Take Over 2020
• methods@manchester Summer School
• Conference Clarity from the PhD complexity? – Methods North West Annual Methods X Conference
• Interdisciplinary seminar series: ‘Evaluation, measurement and assessment’
• Methods X 2019
• Methodological innovations to meet 21st Century societal challenges
• methods@manchester Methods Fair 2019
• Critical ethnographies of green transition
• MethodsX 2019/20 Stream Meeting – Interview-based Qualitative Research
• MethodsX 2019/20 Stream Meeting – Archives, Collections and Documents of Life
• Manchester Methods Exchanges Conference
• The challenges and opportunities for collaborating with substance testing services
• methods@manchester Summer School: Creative Approaches to Qualitative Researching
• methods@manchester Summer School: Getting Started in R – an introduction to data analysis and visualisation
• methods@manchester Summer School: Structural Equation Modelling with MPlus
• methods@manchester Summer School: Generalized Linear Models: a comprehensive system of analysis and graphics using R and the Rcommander
• methods@manchester Summer School: Introduction to social network analysis using UCINET and Netdraw
• methods@manchester Summer School: Statistical analysis of social networks
• methods@manchester Summer School: Integrated Mixed-Methods Research including QCA
• methods@manchester Summer School: Factor Analysis for Integrated Mixed Methods Research
• NWCDTP/ NWSSDTP Research Impact PGR training event
• Methods Fair 2017
• 4th Annual NWDTC Doctoral Student Conference – Communicating your research to diverse audiences – Lancaster University, 1 July 2016
• Exploring Feminist Legal Research – University of Liverpool, 29 June 2016
• Interdisciplinary NWDTC PGR Conference: Methods, Measurement and the Problem of Scale – University of Manchester, 21 June 2016
• Telling stories with research: narratological analysis as a method for writing – University of Liverpool, 16 May 2016
• MNW One Day Symposium: Political Economy and Emotion: Into the Heart of State, Space and Power – University of Liverpool, 11 April 2016
• An introduction to the latest thinking in social impact measurement: wellbeing valuation – The University of Manchester, 10 February 2016
• Participatory Action Research – University of Liverpool, 2 February 2016
• Understanding Society Using Quantitative Methods – University of Liverpool, 1 February 2016
• Focus Groups – University of Liverpool, 1 February 2016
• Writing and Publishing Journal Articles – The University of Manchester, 26 January 2016
• Writing Clearly About Research – The University of Manchester, 25 January 2016
• Supervising Quantitative Research Degrees – An event for Supervisors of DTC students organised by UK Data Service – The University of Manchester, 22 January 2016
• Laurence Hemming on ‘Us’ – A Seminar Series on Subjectivity by Laurence Paul Hemming – Lancaster University, 12 January 2016 – 8 March 2016
• Telling Stories with Research: Narratological analysis as a methods for writing – University of Liverpool, 17 December 2015
• From Social Disorder to Moral Order – University of Liverpool, 9 December 2015
• Researching within the LGBT Community – University of Liverpool, 3 December 2015
• Sociology and Democratic Knowledge – University of Liverpool, 25 November 2015
• Blogging for Academics: A practical workshop – University of Liverpool, 13 November 2015
• Researching medicine, health and society – University of Liverpool, 22 October – 26 November 2015
• methods@manchester Methods Fair 2015 – The University of Manchester, 4 November 2015
• The Inaugural Regional Postgraduate Q-Step Event – Cardiff University, 19 October 2015
• Research Data Management Workshop – The University of Manchester, 6-7 October 2015
• Introduction to QGIS: Understanding and presenting special data – University of Liverpool, 1 October 2015
• Managing Qualitative Research – Lancaster University, 17 March 2015
• Annual NWDTC Doctoral Student Event: Transformative Social Science – University of Liverpool, 17 October 2014
• Methodological Innovation in Child and Infant Research Conference – Lancaster University, 29 September 2014
• Master Classes Series: Freedom of Information and Transformative Research – University of Liverpool, 5 March 2014
• Researching Work and Family: Methods across disciplines – Lancaster University, 19 June 2013
• Live Data: Research in Real-Time – University of Liverpool, 24 January 2013
• Ketso-based workshop for Methodology Review and Development – The University of Manchester, 9 July 2012
• Attitudes Symposium – The University of Manchester, 26 June 2012
• Visualisation and Visual Data: Beyond the Quantitative Qualitative – Lancaster University, 30 September 2011

 

Past event details

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Working with Twitter

Twitter has recently been a fantastic source of data. Never before has an individually been able to so trivially access historic opinions and watch them develop over time. In this talk Joseph Allen (University of Manchester) will cover scraping historic and live data from Twitter and running real-time sentiment analysis. Programming will be using Python.

Register here

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Methods Session on Critical Thinking

Do you know what ‘critical thinking’ really is and is not? Can you define it? Are you able to explain its importance within research and beyond? Critical thinking has been deemed the most important 21st century skill, sought-after not only in academia but also within the workplace and society. However, studies show that many students only marginally improve their critical thinking skills, complex reasoning and academic writing during their journeys through higher education. Moreover, employers often note that their workforce struggle to perform tasks that require reasoning, problem-solving and creativity, i.e., skills that are rooted in critical thinking.

This session will help you understand better what critical thinking is, its importance in research and personal life, and distinguish what tools are needed to develop the basic skill set and become a better critical thinker. You will also learn about the basis of argumentation. By the end of this session, you will be better able to:

• Explain what critical thinking is and it is not
• Describe its components
• Understand the importance of argumentation
• Apply the basic argument structure to your reading & writing

Register here

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Methods Session on Data Collection

In this event, Julie Longson (Keele University) will give a talk on:  ” Reflection on data collection via telephone/videoconferencing with older people”

Register here

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A toolkit for exploring musical memories and emotions

In this session, Alexandra Lamont  at Keele University will discuss “DIY Desert Island Discs: a toolkit for exploring musical memories and emotions”

Register here

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Data Pre-processing

Data pre-processing is a data mining technique that involves transforming raw data into an understandable format. With the increasing amount of data available for research and analysis, real-world data is often incomplete or inconsistent and thus not ready to be used directly. Multiple spreadsheets, missing values, typos, numbers shown as text, unnecessary columns. Data without adequate preparation will deliver poor or misleading findings. This is exemplified by the pithy data scientist phrase ‘GIGO’, which stands for ‘Garbage In Garbage Out’. In this talk, Anran Zhao (University of Manchester) introduces data pre-processing and its workflow, including steps on data integration, data cleaning, data reduction and data transformation, as well as some of the issues people should be aware of in this process.

Register here

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4 C’s of Passing: Creating a New Framework to Fit your Research

This session, Billie-Gina Thomason (University of Liverpool) will begin by sharing with you the case of a gender passing individual named William Seymour. William was a biological woman who lived and presented as a man in all aspects of their life. It will then explore the conceptual framework of the 4 C’s of Passing that  I created to explore the life of William and other gender passing individuals like him. It will conclude by offering a working example of using this framework and consider how we can be creative in our research and use what is around us to develop new framework’s and alter older ones to fit our own research.

Register here

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Observational sketching as method

In this session, Sue Heath at the University of Manchester will present on “Observational sketching as method”

Register here

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Online Interviews & social media approaches for recruitment

In this session, Noureen Shivji (Keele University) will present on “Online Interviews / Delphi / social media approaches for recruitment”

Register here

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Making autoethnography

In this session, Clare Holdsworth (Keele University) will present on “Making autoethnography”

Register here

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Discourse Analysis: how and why should I do it?

In this session, Alexandra Krendel (Lancaster University) will showcase several methods currently used to analyse discourse. Discourse is defined as language above the level of the sentence. A discourse analysis approach is a qualitative one, which takes into account both the specific linguistic features of interest in a given text, as well as the context in which texts are created. He also discusses discourse analysis which is undertaken from a ‘critical’ perspective, and thus focuses on how ideology and power relations are expressed through language. He then demonstrates that discourse analysis methods can be applied in a wide range of contexts which may be of interest to social science scholars. These include conversations, political discourse, the language of the news, healthcare, business, as well as online contexts.

Register here

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Introducing Corpus Approaches to Social Science

In this session, Luke Collins (Lancaster University) will introduce the basic principles of corpus linguistics: a set of computational approaches to studying language in large datasets. Corpus linguistics supports researchers in uncovering patterns in language on the basis of quantitative measures and is informed by linguistic theory. This helps us to gather evidence on how language is used according to various contexts and in pursuit of different communicative goals, making it a highly flexible tool for research across the social sciences. This seminar will cover the fundamental concepts and introduce the tools used in corpus linguistics, demonstrating how attendees can benefit from existing resources as well as how they might go about using corpus linguistics to analyse their own data.

Register here

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4th Methods X Conference

We are thrilled to invite you for the 4th MethodsX conference. Consider submitting proposals and abstracts to links@keele.ac.uk  by 13th JUNE 2021. Check out the registration link  for submission guidelines, programme details and deadlines.

Theme: Helping social science researchers to understand information on social media

NB: Please note the submissions should not be limited to social media research only and we encourage submissions on other topics.

This year’s conference will focus on methodological approaches to understanding social media information. The relevance of social media research has naturally become more pronounced during the Covid 19 pandemic but equally, it has always played an important role in social science research as representations of a topic in social media shape what we think or do about that topic and how we engage with it. Our key note speakers will therefore explore qualitative and quantitative approaches to researching social media information, focusing on how research topics are problematised in social media and how to critically engage with social media problematisations of these topics.

Submission deadlines: 13th June 2021

Conference Date: 18th June 2021

Register here

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NWSSDTP Workshop on conducting research within ethical boundaries

In this NWSSDTP workshop led by Dr Catherine Easton and Dr Gary Potter of Lancaster University, we will:

• Introduce the main issues covered by research ethics committees
• Provide examples and hands on experience of resolving ethical dilemmas and demonstrate typical howlers!
• Equip you to complete your own institution’s research ethics committee application form.

REGISTER here

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Methods session on positionality in qualitative research

Qualitative method texts often discuss the importance of understanding positionality as a researcher during research design, yet its importance for participants during data collection is often neglected. In this seminar, Rosie Harrison (Lancaster University – Management School ), using personal experiences of conducting ethnographic fieldwork with paid carers will explore how notions of positionality matter for participants and will provide a space for you to reflect on the potential implications for your own research.

Register here

You will be sent the Zoom link and password after registration.

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Using Graphic Elicitation Data Gathering Methods with Ex-Offenders

In this talk,  Lee Wainwright (University of Liverpool – Management School) will draw personal  research into how entrepreneuring in prison helps to change the lived experience under conditions of extreme restriction, to discuss what graphic elicitation methods are, how to use them and how to analyse the qualitative data.

Register here

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Flexible Re-design of Cognitive Psychology Research in Response to COVID-19

In this seminar, Tamer Said (University of Cambridge) will discuss how ongoing research methodology and methods has been modified and re-designed to adapt to, and as a response to COVID-19 Challenges.

Register here

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Ethnography-informed case study: Practical considerations and tips

This presentation aims to provide some practical considerations and tips for applying this research design to doctoral study. Beginning with a critical discussion of the prevailing terms used in contemporary literature, such as ‘ethnographic case study’, ‘mini-ethnographic case study’, and ‘micro-ethnography’,Dr Sihui Wang  (School of Social, Political and Global Studies, Keele University) will then discuss ways in which these principles can be applied to case study work, with reference to the selection of cases, and ‘nested’ approaches to understanding cases in context. The talk will conclude with practical tips for data collection and analysis as well as some potential questions you may come across during academic conferences, or even your viva.

Register here

The Event will take place on MS Teams and the link to the event will be sent to registered participants one day before the event. If you have any questions, please email the event organiser, Dr Aneta Hayes (a.m.hayes@keele.ac.uk).

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Using archives and historical research in government research: pitfalls and prospects

Speaker: Michael Lambert, Lancaster University

This seminar draws on personal experience of engaging with government inquiries using archival sources and historical research as well as undertaking commissioned investigations. It offers a consideration of the form, function and purpose of inquiries and their processes, the nature of different types of archives, records and sources – as well as tracing linkages across them; and some of the opportunities and challenges presented in such research.

Register here

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Research using social media: Facebook, mumsnet and blogs

Speaker: Nadia von Benzon, Lancaster University

Social media provides a vast and incredibly accessible repository of qualitative data. Its potential for supporting efficient and incisive research across all levels of academia is huge. However, social media-based research is also replete with ethical and methodological challenges. In this talk I will explore some of the opportunities and the concerns of using social media as both a primary and secondary data source, focusing on my own recent research across Facebook, Mumsnet and ‘Mummy’ blogs.

Register here

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Using the FOI Act to Gather Data – Lessons from Socio-legal research

In this talk, Siobhan Weare and Tom Webb (Lancaster University Law School) will discuss the approach of using the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act to gather data based on practical application in Socio-legal research.

Register here

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Process Tracing Techniques: Innovations to systemetise qualitative

research

Chelsea Johnson (University of Liverpool)

Process tracing is often invoked in small-n case studies as a way of systematising qualitative research, but there is little agreement about best practices for using the method. In this talk, I discuss my work applying a recent innovation in process tracing techniques to a large-N sample of cases.

Register here

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Using the FOI Act to Gather Data – Lessons from Socio-legal research

In this talk, Siobhan Weare and Tom Webb (Lancaster University Law School) will discuss the approach of using the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act to gather data based on practical application in Socio-legal research.

Register here

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MethodsX 2019/20 Stream Meeting – Quantitative Methods

Quantitative Methods: Tuesday 21st January 2020, 09.30-13.30 (to include lunch), School of Arts Library, University of Liverpool (19 Abercromby Square)

All new ESRC-funded NWSSDTP postgraduate students are expected to attend one of these meetings and will be sent an email asking which stream they wish to join, with further details of the event to follow. Students who signed up to a stream last year will hear shortly from the stream coordinator with further details.

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MethodsX 2019/20 Stream Meeting – New Forms of Data/Digital Methods

New Forms of Data/Digital Methods: Tuesday 21st January 2020, 12.30-16.30 (to include lunch), School of Arts Library, University of Liverpool (19 Abercromby Square)

All new ESRC-funded NWSSDTP postgraduate students are expected to attend one of these meetings and will be sent an email asking which stream they wish to join, with further details of the event to follow. Students who signed up to a stream last year will hear shortly from the stream coordinator with further details.

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MethodsX 2019/20 Stream Meeting – Ethnography

Ethnography: Friday 31st January 2020, 11.00 – 15.00 (to include lunch), University Place 5.206, University of Manchester

All new ESRC-funded NWSSDTP postgraduate students are expected to attend one of these meetings and will be sent an email asking which stream they wish to join, with further details of the event to follow. Students who signed up to a stream last year will hear shortly from the stream coordinator with further details.

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MethodsX Conference 2020: Hold the Date!

We are pleased to announce that the 2020 MethodsX Conference will be held at Keele University on Friday 15 May 2020.

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Methods Fair 2020: The Changing Face of Research

November 30, 2020

methods@manchester is pleased to announce this year’s Methods Fair. See below for details of the call for abstracts.

This one-day, online event will emphasise innovative developments in research methods through talks, workshops, and networking opportunities centered around the changing face of research that 2020 has brought. Alongside the programme of talks and workshops will be networking opportunities in “meet the experts” sessions, and a chance to win prizes with lightning talks about your own research experiences.

Talks will reflect how the academic and research landscape has changed over 2020 across social science and the humanities.

Workshops  will cover the following topics:

• Introduction to digital methods
• Research in times of crisis
• Developing effective research funding proposals
• Open and reproducible research

Meet the experts sessions will provide 1-2-1 networking and discussion opportunities between attendees and experts in topics such as open science, reproducibility, writing papers for publication, applying for research funding, AI/Machine Learning, text analysis, spatial analysis, data visualisation, creative methods, and more.

Submit your abstract to give a lightning talk at the event about your research for the chance to win prizes. Details can be found here. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 5pm on 20^th November.

Register now for free on Eventbrite.

 

 

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MethodsX Twitter Take Over 2020

MethodsX Twitter Take Over 2020

Conference Programme

Wednesday 16^th December

10.00-11.30: Interviews and Ethnography

10.15-10.35: Olivia Fletcher, Healthy lifestyles or ‘dangerous competition’? – self-tracking and the geographies of surveillance in the lives of young people.

10.35-10.55: Lee Wainwright, How the process of entrepreneuring can help people overcome oppression, with focus upon ex-offenders who have made a new positive life transition

10.55-11.15: Rosie Harrison:  Exploring the emotional work of carers

 

1.00-2.00: Live! Tips and hints: success in your PhD

Over this 60 minute session, @MethodsNW will share the following questions for current and past PhD students to crowdsource the best tips for success in your PhD. These will be tweeted over the course of the session, but you can start thinking of your answers now. If you are a second year or above, you may have tips to share. If you are a first year, follow and retweet #MethodsX2020 for ideas!

1. What is the best advice you received during your PhD?
2. Top tips for motivation during your PhD?
3. What is the best advice you can give for someone starting their PhD?
4. What was the most useful experience you gained during your PhD (besides writing a thesis)?
5. How did you develop a good working relationship with your PhD supervisors?
6. What do you know now as a PhD graduate that you wish you knew then?

 

Thursday 17^th December

10.00-11.30: Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences (I)

10.15-10.35: James Watson, Dementia Care Pathways and GP data: Survival Analysis, Logistic Regression, Sequence Analysis

10.35-10.55: Amardeep Legha, Longitudinal trajectories of work absence: bridging the gap between health and work

10.55-11.15:  Jingwen Zhang, Modelling the longitudinal dynamics or rural-urban disparity in later life in China

11.15-11.35: Chloe Brennan, Impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of health and social care staff- a longitudinal study

11.35-11.55: Niall Newsham, Analysing population decline trajectories in regional Europe:  sequence analysis

 

1.45-3.00: Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences (II)

1.55-2.15: Patrick Ballantyne, American Retail Centre Geographies: An approach to retail centre delineation based on graph structures and ‘H3’ geometries

2.15-2.35: Ellen Schwaller, Quantifying impacts of urban food environment policies: A hybrid model approach

2.35-2.55: Cillian Berragan, Using Pre-Trained Transformer Architectures for Geographic Entity Recognition

4.00-5.00: Live! Best resources for…

Over this 60 minute session, @MethodsNW will share the following questions for current and past PhD students to crowdsource the best methodological resources for success in your PhD. These will be tweeted over the course of the session, but you can start thinking of your answers now. If you are a second year or above, you may have tips to share. If you are a first year, follow and retweet #MethodsX2020 for ideas! This may include websites, books, training courses and more.

1. Where is your go to forum for methods-based support?
2. Who are your favourite methodological bloggers?
3. Can you recommend any free/affordable methods-based training courses?
4. What is your go to book for methodological support?
5. What is the computer software you wish you had known about from the start?

 

Friday 18^th December

10.00-11.30: Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences (III)

10.15-10.35: Hannah Sawyer, Investigating the underlying causes of the verb-marking deficit in English-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder

10.35-10.55: Emma Thornton, Inequalities in vocabulary: examining the predictive value of SES measures over developmental and historical time

10.55-11.15: Alexandra Welsh, Statistics for Public Health: Using Joint Longitudinal-Survival Models to Estimate Quality-Adjusted Life Years

 

12.00-1.30: Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences (IV)

12.15-12.35: Vincy Huang, Health Impact of Nicotine & Tobacco (HINT): a microsimulation decision-support tool for local and national tobacco control policies

12.35-12.55: Rebecca Gregson, Using smartphone-based experience sampling to investigate whether social support enhances the efficacy of meat-free pledging

12.55-1.15: Sam Rawsthorne, Does (Mandated) Annual Report Discourse on Strategy Provide Meaningful Insights about Value Creation

 

2.00-3.00: Live! Amplify their voice!

Over this 60 minute session, we will be asking current and past PhD students working within and outside of academia who to follow and whose voice they want to amplify. Follow #MethodsX2020 to build your twitter network. These will be tweeted over the course of the session, but you can start thinking of your answers now.

1. Who do you recommend following for their research?
2. Who do you recommend following for their innovative methods?
3. Whose voice do you want to amplify in the academic community?

 

Presenters

Ballantyne, Patrick	@pj_ballantyne	University of Liverpool
Berragan, Cillian	@cjberragan	University of Liverpool
Brennan, Chloe	@chloejbrennan	University of Liverpool
Fletcher, Olivia	@livAfletcher	University of Liverpool
Gregson, Rebecca	@rebecca_gregson	Lancaster University
Harrison, Rosie	@PrimaryRosie	Lancaster University
Huang, Vincy	@vincyhuangwj	University of Liverpool
Legha, Amardeep	@AmardeepLegha	Keele University
Newsham, Niall	@nnewsh_	University of Liverpool
Rawsthorne, Sam	@rawsthorne_sam	Lancaster University
Sawyer, Hannah	@HSawyer01	University of Liverpool
Schwaller, Ellen	@etc_ellen	University of Liverpool
Thornton, Emma	@emma_thornton95	University of Liverpool
Wainwright, Lee	@lee1wainwright	University of Liverpool
Watson, James	@JmsWats	University of Liverpool
Welsh, Alexandra	@AlexWelsh_stats	Lancaster University
Zhang, Jingwen	@lily_zjw	University of Manchester

 

Abstracts

Ballantyne, Patrick: American Retail Centre Geographies: An approach to retail centre delineation based on graph structures and ‘H3’ geometries

Concentrations of individual retail units and their associated activities, formally defined as ‘retail centres’, are important tools for understanding the distribution and evolution of the retail sector at varying geographical scales. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive account of retail centre geographies in the US, through delineation of their scale, extent and catchments, and classification based on their salient characteristics. This presentation will focus on the methods used to delineate the extent of centres, which utilises Uber’s hexagonal spatial index ‘H3’ and graph structures, to provide a comprehensible and replicable approach to the delineation of retail centres, based on the connectivity of retailer locations and surrounding urban morphology. Preliminary results are presented for two contrasting American cities, to illustrate its effectiveness, and feedback on the approach and its methodological and theoretical rigour would be much appreciated.

University of Liverpool: @pj_ballantyne

Berragan, Cillian: Using Pre-Trained Transformer Architectures for Geographic Entity Recognition

Place names in natural language contribute an additional geographic dimension to much of the existing online textual information. Despite this, many methods for the extraction of place names from text use pre-trained models that were not explicitly designed for this task.

This research aims to present a method for the accurate task-specific extraction of place names from any text, using new developments in natural language processing. The focus is on the use of the pre-trained transformer architecture which has achieved popularity for many recent NLP tasks. These models have several benefits for this research;

1. They are relatively easy to implement and typically require the addition of a single output layer to achieve task specific results.
2. They are easily fine-tuned, meaning models that were pre-trained on large amounts of text data may be made task-specific with a relatively small amount of additional labelled data.
3. Pre-trained transformers have achieved state of the art results on many tasks, including named entity recognition.

This model identifies place names that are not present within formal administrative datasets, hoping to assist with their completeness, and the inclusion of vernacular names.

Demo: https://share.streamlit.io/cjber/ger_wiki/ger_streamlit.py

University of Liverpool: @cjberragan

 

Brennan, Chloe: Impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of health and social care staff – a longitudinal study

My study is investigating whether a number of risk and protective factors can predict whether health and social care workers employed during the COVID-19 pandemic will develop two mental health conditions – post-traumatic embitterment disorder (PTED) and moral injury. I have collected data on 400 health and social care workers and will re-collect data in one year. I will use modelling techniques e.g. SEM or path analysis to model my findings. Analysis of the initial round of data collection shows the prevalence of PTED in this sample is 7.8 times higher than in the general population (Linden, 2009).

University of Liverpool: @chloejbrennan

 

Fletcher, Olivia: Healthy lifestyles or ‘dangerous competition’? – self-tracking and the geographies of surveillance in the lives of young people

My research aims to explore how young people incorporate self-tracking in their everyday life through exploring how embodiment is reconstituted between online and offline spaces, whilst exploring how the different modes of surveillance are incorporated and the role of social capital in relation to health in a neoliberal context. This research will use a variety of methods, including digital semi-structured interviews, netnography and content analysis. Digital methodologies are invaluable for exploring and uncovering everyday lived experience for young people.

University of Liverpool: @livAfletcher

 

Gregson, Rebecca: Using smartphone-based experience sampling to investigate whether social support enhances the efficacy of meat-free pledging.

Meat consumption brings an amass of negative consequences: harming human health, damaging the environment and exacerbating social justice issues. For these reasons, scholars and NGO’s are calling for a global shift towards more plant-based eating. However, efforts to promote meat reduction are often met with reluctance. A commonly quoted barrier to more plant-based eating is an anticipated lack of social support; the perception that our friends and family won’t support such a transition and so we would have to go it alone. There is growing debate in the literature around whether this reflects a true barrier, or a rationalisation used to support continued consumption. Using smartphone-based experience-sampling, we invite participants to take part in 14-day meat-free pledge, completed either alone or as part of a small group. Comparing pledge success and long-term attitude and behaviour change between these two conditions, we intend to answer this question: does social support enhance the efficacy of meat-free pledging?

Lancaster University: @rebecca_gregson

 

Harrison, Rosie: Exploring the emotional work of carers

The overall aim of the research was to explore how domiciliary carers managed the emotional aspects of care within client’s homes. Ethnographic methods were used, which focussed on what carers did and how their sense-making of their actions. Data consisted primarily of observations and interviews carried out over 5 months in a UK Domiciliary Care company. Ethnographic methods were chosen for two main reasons. Firstly, domiciliary care is an under-researched care setting, and so ethnography was chosen as it provides rich data on the lived experiences of participants. Also, as ways of managing emotions are primarily unthought-of and embodied, observations were necessary to capture this data. Preliminary results show the complexity of emotional management within the care setting and highlight the skills necessary for such work. Analysis shows that there are some common themes amongst the participants, including the use of space, the importance of relationships and the embodied nature of emotional work.

Lancaster University: @PrimaryRosie

 

Huang, Vincy: Health Impact of Nicotine & Tobacco (HINT): a microsimulation decision-support tool for local and national tobacco control policies in England

Tobacco pandemic, a top public health priority, kills more than 8 million people worldwide annually. Over several decades, various actions have been taking to end it, targeting the accessibility, acceptability and affordability of tobacco products. Modelling has been used to shape such policies before real-world implementation and to quantify their impact post-implementation.

In this project, I will develop a microsimulation decision support tool to aid tobacco control policy makers at the local and national levels. This tool will synthesise a close-to-reality English population, including the trends of the cumulative exposure to smoking, second-hand smoking, and electronic cigarettes. I will use this tool to quantify the health outcome and cost-effectiveness of tobacco policies, and visualise this information in a user-friendly web-based user-interface.

University of Liverpool: @vincyhuangwj

 

Legha, Amardeep: Longitudinal trajectories of work absence: bridging the gap between health and work

Absence from work due to ill-health is one of the biggest causes of productivity loss across the UK, particularly absenteeism due to musculoskeletal pain and mental health conditions. Early intervention to support return-to-work can be highly beneficial to patients and wider society. In the UK, General Practitioners (GPs) administer fit notes to patients which are subsequently recorded in the electronic health records (EHRs), but it is currently unknown at GP consultation who is at risk of longer-term absence.

Thus the overall aim of this PhD is to use Primary Care EHRs to compare statistical methods to model common patterns (trajectories) of work absence; and determine health and sociodemographic characteristics associated with the resultant longitudinal trajectories. Trajectories will be modelled using simple statistical approaches such as cumulative duration of absence, and more complex longitudinal approaches such as latent class growth analysis and growth mixture modelling.

Keele University: @AmardeepLegha

 

Newsham, Niall: Analysing Population Decline Trajectories in Regional Europe: A Sequence Analysis

Latest population projections expect the continental population of Europe to reverse its longstanding trajectory of growth into one of decline within the next five years. Population decline is not, however, expected to occur uniformly across the continent as significant differences in the rate and direction of population change are set to persist, further exacerbating regional and country demographic imbalances. Despite the immediacy of continental population decline, the subject remains under researched and our understanding insufficient. Particular deficiencies stem from a lack of both cross-national and temporal considerations of depopulation. This study seeks to address this through the novel application of sequence and cluster analysis techniques to examine variations in population decline trajectories in 1,871 sub-national areas across 43 European territories. The methodology allows for a holistic understanding of decline trajectories whilst also considering the ordering, timing, and magnitude of population decline. Its main contribution is the formulation of a typology of decline in which eight distinct pathways to depopulation are identified and mapped.

University of Liverpool: @nnewsh_

 

Rawsthorne, Sam: Does (Mandated) Annual Report Discourse on Strategy Provide Meaningful Insights About Value Creation?

Managers face increasing pressure from financial statement users and regulators to articulate their approach to creating and maintaining shareholder value. However, concerns about revealing proprietary information to competitors potentially limits the usefulness of strategy disclosures. I investigate whether and how strategy discourse provides meaningful insights into firm-level approaches to value creation by constructing a large corpus of strategy disclosures extracted from UK annual reports. To test whether strategy discourse contains relevant content I apply topic modelling techniques (Latent Dirichlet Allocation and Correlation Explanation models) to identify prominent themes. This allows me to map content to recognisable textbook models or otherwise shed light on management-based views of strategy. Next, I investigate the language of strategy discourse using corpus linguistics techniques including keyword analysis and collocation networks. This reveals salient features relative to other narrative commentary to test whether strategy discourse is presented in a clear and meaningful way.

Lancaster University: @rawsthorne_sam

 

Sawyer, Hannah: Investigating the underlying causes of the verb-marking deficit in English-speaking children with Developmental Language Disorder

Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) affects approximately 7% of language-learning children and is defined as “a significant deficit in language ability that cannot be attributed to hearing loss, low non-verbal intelligence or neurological damage” (Leonard, 2014: 3). My PhD aims to investigate the underlying causes of the verb-marking deficit in English-speaking children with DLD by testing an input-based account using multiple different quantitative methods. One method I will be using is sentence repetition as it is a highly effective way of probing weaknesses in children’s knowledge across a controlled set of items. Currently, however, I am using different programming languages such as Python, R and UNIX-command line tools to analyse transcriptions of children’s spontaneous speech for verb-marking errors. This method was chosen as the transcripts are publicly available and provide easy access to samples of children’s speech without the need for experimental data collection (which is important during the COVID-19 pandemic).

University of Liverpool: @HSawyer01

 

Schwaller, Ellen: Quantifying impacts of urban food environment policies: A hybrid model approach

The food environment plays an essential role as a determinant of diet and associated health outcomes like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. I am interested in how policies impacting our food environment result in different diet outcomes across the population. To investigate, this project takes a hybrid modelling approach utilising complex systems science methods. A small area estimation technique simulates individual-level attributes of the Liverpool population. These are inputs, along with data on the local food environment, to an agent-based model (ABM). Different policy scenarios, co-created with local stakeholders, are simulated utilising the ABM and the outcomes are analysed. With this I hope to facilitate decision making, taking into account the complex nature of the multiple factors acting within and on the food environment.

University of Liverpool: @etc_ellen

 

Thornton, Emma: Inequalities in vocabulary: examining the predictive value of SES measures over developmental and historical time

This study involved secondary data analysis of two large UK birth cohort studies: the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) and British Cohort Study (BCS) to investigate inequalities in language development. Following multiple imputation, regression modelling and model comparisons were conducted in R to assess the relative value of 5 SES predictors and a composite measure of SES in predicting language ability throughout childhood (ages 3, 5, 11 and 14) in the MCS cohort. Using data from the MCS and BCS, 2 indicators of SES were then used to look at inequalities in language ability in early childhood, late childhood and adolescence in both cohorts. These cohorts were chosen as they are separated by a period that saw considerable change to the occupational and educational structure of the UK and due to the rich availability of SES and vocabulary measures at multiple ages throughout childhood, particularly from the MCS cohort.

University of Liverpool: @emma_thornton95

 

Wainwright, Lee: How the process of entrepreneuring can help people overcome oppression, with focus upon ex-offenders who have made a new positive life transition

Emancipatory entrepreneurship focusses upon the process of entrepreneuring as a route to autonomy and emancipation for marginalised groups, breaking free from the oppressive stigma and the ‘othering’ of a dominant power through entrepreneurial activity. This research project explores how ex-offenders who have undertaken entrepreneurial pathways have successfully transitioned out of at-risk circumstances. To do this longitudinal narrative interviews and graphic elicitation are employed, highlighting the key high and low events across the participants process of transition. Early results shed light on the absence of individual agency and sense of control in the appreciation of everyday opportunities. In conditions of oppression where agency and control (and freedom) are taken away, everyday opportunities can nevertheless be seen emerging as a result of compliance and peers rewarding and legitimizing inaction.  Results will contribute to our understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour as embedded in emancipatory life-projects in absence of a “new venture” outcome and in traditional boundary conditions in entrepreneurship research (e.g. a business is being developed).

University of Liverpool: @lee1wainwright

 

Watson, James: Dementia care pathways and GP data: Survival Analysis, Logistic Regression, Sequence Analysis

Aims: My PhD aims to understand how use of, quality and type of health and social care interactions for people with dementia (PwD) can vary by patients’ age, gender, socio-economic deprivation and urban/rural geography.

Methods: Initial analyses is an exploration of the millions of records PwD’s interactions with their GP practice.  We will build sequence analysis to illustrate different dementia care trajectories/pathways and care choices, highlighting those which elicit positive and negative health outcomes.

We have produced logistic regression models and odds ratios to assess the impact of age group and gender on patient’s likelihood of mortality.  We have also prospectively identified survival analyses; demonstrating temporal change in survival and potential impact of previously stated factors.

Preliminary Results: Logistic regression indicates males with dementia have greater risk of mortality, and PwD aged 75-84 have greater risk of mortality than those aged 85-94 and 95+.

University of Liverpool: @JmsWats

 

Welsh, Alexandra: Statistics for Public Health: Using Joint Longitudinal-Survival Models to Estimate Quality-Adjusted Life-Years

Cost-effectiveness analyses are key in allocating healthcare resources. The health outcomes used for these analyses should incorporate the impact of a treatment on both the length of life and health-related quality of life (HQoL). The quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) is one such summary measure. An area under the curve (AUC) method can be used to estimate QALYs, through linear interpolation of the longitudinal HQoL data points. However, summary measures such as the AUC may result in biased estimates^[1]. We aim to investigate whether and when using joint longitudinal-survival models^[6] can reduce this bias, and lead to efficiency gains when estimating QALYs. We are conducting a simulation study to identify which scenarios induce bias. The data is simulated from a joint model^[7]; scenarios considered vary the slope, censoring, and data missingness. QALYs are estimated using the model by Glasziou et al. (1998). This study will be expanded to assess other models, such as joint models and joint models with reverse-time elements^{[2], [4], [5]}.

Lancaster University: @AlexWelsh_stats

 

Zhang, Jingwen: Modelling the longitudinal dynamics of rural-urban health disparity in later life in China

My PhD research aims to investigate the longitudinal dynamics of rural-urban health disparity in later life in China. Several longitudinal and life-history modelling techniques will be employed to enrich the understanding. Drawing data from China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study, I will first use a multilevel growth curve model to identify the health trajectory of older people throughout the later life and across different periods to understand the temporal patterns of health inequality. Secondly, to further explain the rural-urban health inequality, sequence analysis will be employed to construct the life trajectories (work, family and migration history) of rural and urban older adults. A mediation analysis will be conducted to examine whether heterogenous life trajectories explain the health inequality found. Lastly, the multilevel modelling structure will be extended to incorporate spatial aspects in order to test the effect of community-level and regional-level context on the rural-urban health disparity. Other methodological contributions of this PhD will be addressing the missingness in respective life history data and the health selection bias.

University of Manchester: @lily_zjw

 

Please contact Dr Fran Darlington-Pollock if you have any questions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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methods@manchester Summer School

The sixth methods@manchester Summer School will be held at The University of Manchester from 2 July to 13 July 2018. Each course at the school will run for one week, offering four days of content to a five-day timetable (Monday afternoon to Friday lunch-time), building on successful methods@manchester and CMIST short-courses given throughout the year.

The school offers a range of specialised courses covering a variety of topics that are particularly relevant to postgraduate and ECR research in humanities and social sciences. The selection includes software training, qualitative and quantitative analysis, area studies, and research design. The course content is based on approaches from across the various schools in the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Manchester.

Courses running in 2018:

• Generalized Linear Models: a comprehensive system of analysis and graphics using R and the Rcommander
• Getting Started in R: an introduction to data analysis and visualisation
• Structural Equation Modelling with MPlus
• Introduction to social network analysis using UCINET and Netdraw
• Statistical analysis of social networks
• Social Media Analysis
• Quantitative Longitudinal Data Analysis

Each course will deliver four days of content to a five-day timetable unless otherwise stated (Monday afternoon to Friday lunch-time).  Places are limited, so please book early to secure your place. The course fee is for a single course and includes 28 hours of face-to-face teaching over five days, and lunch on four days.

Further details of courses may be found at the methods@manchester website.

Bursaries

We have a small number of bursaries available for University of Manchester PhD Students (reducing the cost of a week-long course to £300) and UK wide PhD Students (reducing the cost of a week-long course to £400).

If you would like to apply for a bursary, please email methods@manchester.ac.uk for an application form.

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Conference Clarity from the PhD complexity? – Methods North West Annual Methods X Conference

The ESRC’s North West Doctoral Training Programme and its MethodsNW teams are joining forces to provide the region’s students with an opportunity to explore their research and underpinning methodology in a supportive and interdisciplinary environment. The conference aims to stimulate the sharing of ideas and to help students build up methods-related networks with researchers working in complimentary areas.

If you are interested in getting involved, or simply submitting a paper (abstract up to 500 words by 5pm, 3 September 2018), please email the contact in the relevant stream. To register please follow website link at bottom of page (under ‘Details’).

New Forms of Data (Emerging forms & codification)
Contact: Michael Mair (michael.mair@liverpool.ac.uk)

Archives & Collections (On all things secondary)
Contact: humanities-training@manchester.ac.uk

Fieldwork [On all things observable]
Contact: Geoff Pearson (geoff.pearson@manchester.ac.uk)

Quantitative Methods [On all things countable]
Contact: humanities-training@manchester.ac.uk

Organised and managed by students with support from experienced staff, we are calling for participants to help our existing teams with the running of the conference and, of course, to present papers. For example:

• You may wish to join forces with your supervisor to present an exciting new technique
• You may feel passionate about the problems of particular methods and wish to debate with others using those techniques
• You might like to run your initial methodology and/or findings past a mutually supportive audience
• You may wish to invite scholars whose work you have long admired and wish to engage in dialogue with.

Participating in the conference provides you with the possibility of helping to manage or even organising your own conference stream with like-minded researchers. Let us have your ideas, become involved and help design and run a conference to meet your needs. You are limited only by your own imagination!

If you are interested in getting involved, or simply submitting a paper (abstract up to 500 words by 5pm, 3 September 2018), please email the contact in the relevant stream.  Enquiries regarding funding should be sent to A.Hesketh@lancaster.ac.uk.

Details of each stream

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New forms of data/digital methods

We live in increasingly digital worlds and that has major implications for the social sciences. Indeed, social science is itself increasingly going digital too. Whether you are developing methods and methodologies for coming to terms with these new digital worlds or harnessing new tools, technologies and forms of data to study familiar subjects from distinctive angles or engaging with new forms of data of whatever kind, this stream will be an opportunity to explore the possibilities in both studies with digital (data, methods, devices) as well as studies of digital (societies, cultures, economies, etc.). If you are involved in either or both, submit an abstract to join the discussion in this exciting area of contemporary research.

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Archives and collections

This strand focuses on the practical challenges facing students when using archives and collections, but will also reflect on some theoretical aspects. Themes to expand upon include (but are not limited to): Personal experiences of working with archives/collections, for “good” or “bad”; How best to prepare ahead of engaging with archives/collections – the things to know; Do you have a collection to bring along and discuss? – How did you/others use it, etc; Having to create your own archive/collection in the course of your studies – pros/cons; Can the provenance of archives/collections shape the way we use them? Should it?; Does digitisation affect engagement? How will digital information shape future sources?

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Fieldwork

This stream is a home for all papers considering the practice, methods, ethics, and politics of using fieldwork to gather research data. Covering fieldwork that is quantitative and based on external observations or in-field structured interviews, through to long-term immersive ethnographic methods such as participant observation, this stream will enable you to debate different fieldwork approaches, dynamics, and dilemmas arising from many different disciplines. Fieldwork can be mentally or physically challenging and exhilarating in equal measure, as well as throwing up dilemmas that even the best methods textbooks cannot predict or provide solutions to. So join us for what promises to be a stimulating and illuminating afternoon!

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Quantitative methods

Quantitative Methodologies represent a powerful method in Social Science that can contribute to both generalised theory testing and to exploratory analysis. However, they can also be highly technical and jargon heavy and can appear intimidating, impenetrable and insular to those who lack familiarity or experience in data analysis. This theme draws together doctoral students and researchers from across many disciplines who are using quantitative methodologies. It addresses the benefits and limitations of these methods, and provides a support network for those grappling with quantitative research methods to discuss common challenges and issues.

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Open Stream

Still struggling to nail your methodological position? Why not tackle this issue head on? Submit your abstract and use the conference to work through your methodological challenges. You could start by drafting a 500 words abstract covering the following: your research questions and why you think they are important; what other research has contributed to date and how your research builds on and develops previous work; the methods and underpinning methodology you are using/considering using; what attracts you/makes you uneasy about such approaches; how you hope to analyse your data and build theory from your empirical work. Or anything else currently on your mind …

We will publish a timetable for the conference sessions closer to the 19 September. We are very much looking forward to seeing you in Lancaster!

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Interdisciplinary seminar series: ‘Evaluation, measurement and assessment’

You are invited to the first seminar of the interdisciplinary seminar series: ‘Evaluation, Measurement and Assessment’ organised by The University of Manchester and Lancaster University. This initiative is funded by Methods North West with support from the ESRC and North West Social Science DTP. The aim of the seminars is to bring together researchers from various fields in Social Sciences to present and discuss issues around evaluation studies in different areas and advancements in the assessment of cognitive and social skills (e.g. performance, attitudes, dispositions, etc.).

The first seminar focusing on the theme of‘Evaluation research and the What Works agenda’ will take place on Wednesday 16 January, 12.00 – 3.00pm Room 2.07, Humanities Bridgeford Street, The University of Manchester

Speakers

Dr Gemma Derrick, Senior Lecturer in Higher Education, Lancaster University – Looking at the peer review processes as an evaluative practice in academia

Prof Julian Williams, Professor of Mathematics, Manchester Institute of Education, The University of Manchester – Why the ‘what works’ policy isn’t working and what we can do about it

The seminar is open to academics, researchers and PhD students.

• Register for this event

Lunch will be provided between 12.00-1.00pm. For more information or questions please contact Sofia Eleftheriadou, sofia.eleftheriadou@manchester.ac.uk

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Methods X 2019

The Third Annual ESRC North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership and Methods North West Methods X Conference
17th May 2019, University of Liverpool

Overview

The Third Annual Methods X Conference is being held in the University of Liverpool on Friday the 17th May 2019. It represents an opportunity for postgraduate researchers from across the region to come together to showcase and discuss the methods and methodologies at the centre of their research and exchange ideas, experiences and insights. It is also an opportunity to enjoy Light Night in Liverpool, the city’s annual free one-night arts festival, with a large number of arts and cultural events taking place across the city from the late afternoon onwards.

Dr Faiza Shaheen

We are extremely pleased to announce that the morning programme will include a keynote by Dr Faiza Shaheen, Director of the Centre for Labour and Social Studies, and an economist by training, who undertook her PhD in the North West, discussing the importance of social research in the contemporary world, as well as talks by three post-doctoral researchers recently awarded their PhDs in the North West – Dr Cat Mahoney, Dr Kirsty Morrin and Dr Eileen Turnbull – on innovation and impact in and through research and how method helps underpin it.

The afternoon programme will involve paper sessions involving contributions from current PGRs organised around the four main North West methods exchanges – the Archives, Collections and Documents of Life Methods Exchange, the Fieldwork Methods Exchange, the New Forms of Data Methods Exchange and the Quantitative Methods Exchange.

The Methods X 2019 Programme can be downloaded here.

Registration and Call for Papers

All PGRs in the NW are welcome to attend the conference and we invite attendees to submit paper proposals for the afternoon sessions. Please register here.

If you want to submit a paper, along with your contact details, please indicate which stream you’d like to contribute to, and provide a provisional title and a short abstract using the Methods X Paper Submission Form.

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Methodological innovations to meet 21st Century societal challenges

Registration is now open for this joint conference organised by the Cathie Marsh Institute for Social Research and methods@manchester.

Date: 10 June 2019

Time: 9am-5pm

Fee: full day fee of £5 postgrad students or £10 non-postgrad students/other

Registration closes: 31 May 2019

Location: Roscoe Building, The University of Manchester, UK, M13 9PL

Conference outline

The conference is multi-disciplinary and focuses on methodological innovation in a wide range of fields including sociology, economics, criminology, health and geography. The methods showcased are diverse and range from new automated approaches to dealing with large scale ‘noisy’ forms of big data to more personalised strategies that centre on co-production and citizen involvement. A key theme of the conference is highlighting methodological innovation across the stages of the research process, i.e. from initial research design to data collection, the use of extant data sources, analysis, the presentation and dissemination of results, and engaging with the public.

Structure to the day

The morning will begin with a keynote presentation, ‘Reflections on Methodological innovation: Challenges and opportunities’ from Professor Jane Elliott, University of Exeter.

In the afternoon, Dr Tom Smith, Managing Director of the new ONS Data Science Campus will deliver his keynote, ‘New forms of data for official statistics’.

The afternoon will provide two optional activities for attendees, which will be confirmed once conference registration closes on 31 May 2019:

1. A data hackathon organised by the National Centre for Research Methods (NCRM). In the hack, those participating will be given a set of datasets and asked to perform an analysis which requires information from some of the datasets.  The datasets are imperfect and participants will have to manage those imperfections.
2. A screening of a documentary film of an arts-based project about the process of recovery from substance use introduced by Professor Amanda Ravetz, Manchester Metropolitan University.

• View the timetable for this event

Presentations throughout the day

Presentations will take place in concurrent sessions that will run across the whole day. Presenters and paper titles are listed below:

• Alastair Roy – A critical discussion of the use of film in participatory research projects with homeless young people: an international case-case based analysis
• Charlotte De Kock – Monitoring migration-related indicators in European drug treatment: Identifying pitfalls and challenges in registration, data collection and database coupling methods 
• Emma Heron – Listening Matters!: The Challenge of Genuine Listening in a Higher Education Setting for the Purpose of Change
• Hanako Smith – Experience Sampling Method in a Living Labs approach: How to connect with millennials in a real-world setting
• Jerome Turner – The Community Panel method: working collaboratively with participants in Facebook Groups.
• Josephine Biglin – ‘Participatory Epistemology and Non-representational Theory: Initial Experiences of Working with Migrant Populations
• Karina Williams – ONS social media analysis of YouTube data
• Kirsty Fife – Challenging Voices: Methods for Documenting and Archiving UK DIY Music Spaces
• Martin Greenwood – Reading the signals: Capturing the meanings of pedestrian crossings practice in Manchester using participant observation and dual-perspective GoPro ethnography
• Matthew Sanderson – Can existing, cross-sectoral community engagements better inform the development of power network design and planning?
• Michelle Van Impe – What do we want and where are we now? Critical methodological reflections on participatory action research with people who use illegal drugs
• Miriam Trzeciak – ‘Tell us something about yourself, too’ – Reflections on Collaborative Research as a Reflexive Tool for Social Research.
• Oana Petcu – What features impact engagement with missing people appeals on twitter?
• Peter Barbrook-Johnson – Participatory Systems Mapping for understanding complex societal issues
• Peter Smyth – Processing Large Datasets using Columnar Datastores on the Desktop
• Ratna Ghosh – A reflexive account of participatory video action research: The stories that middle-class women in urban India don’t want to share
• Rosalind Edwards – Big data, qualitative style: a breadth-and-depth method for working with large amounts of secondary qualitative data
• Sally Ruth Fergusson-Wormley – “Embedding the voice” – Co-producing a PhD

Registering for the event

This is a not-for-profit conference. We are making a small charge to attendees as a contribution to some of the costs.

• Register for this event

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methods@manchester Methods Fair 2019

methods@manchester is delighted to announce their annual Methods Fair: Creativity in Social Science Research, will be held on 28th October 2019 at The University of Manchester from 10.30am to 4.45pm.

Building on the success of the 2017 Methods Fair, which focused on creative ways of presenting research findings and engaging audiences, this year’s theme explores creativity in the methods researchers use and how creativity can enhance research practices, including data generation and recording, analysis and data presentation.

Creative research methods have developed and multiplied in recent decades, providing alternative ways of knowing and understanding the world, as well as answering complex research questions that cannot be achieved by traditional methods alone. However, researchers are also being creative with conventional research methods and approaches to analysis. We aim to showcase the various ways creativity drives all kinds of social science research and methodologies, from the conception of an idea, to creative ways of generating, collecting, recording, analysing and presenting data.

The methods@manchester Methods Fair 2019 is a free event, however, registration is required.

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Critical ethnographies of green transition

Call for participation: Critical ethnographies of green transition

Manchester (Friends’ Meeting House) / 21 & 22 November 2019

https://criticalethnographies.wordpress.com/

A growing technosphere, drastic biodiversity loss and increasing climate chaos contribute to dramatic socio-ecological changes across the planet. Droughts, floods, resource shortages, mega-infrastructure, shifting species distributions, soil degradation and other phenomena impact livelihoods and indeed survival opportunities.

Experienced and comprehended in many different ways, these changes provoke a variety of different responses. Whether top-down or bottom-up,  initiatives for transitions to sustainability are mushrooming. From ‘green economy’ strategies and high-tech fixes to grassroots initiatives and social movements, envisioned sustainability transitions and their material realisations take on various forms, at different scales, all over the world: offshore wind farms, biorefineries, carbon markets, geoengineering, tax cuts for electric cars, photovoltaic roof tiles, guerrilla gardening, ecosystem restoration camps, permaculture conventions, off-grid communities, indigenous uprisings, to name but a few. These different initiatives embody conflicting visions of a ‘green’ future and the pathways to get there and may have uneven effects.

This workshop will provide an opportunity to exchange research experiences and visions with regard to ethnographically studying “green transition initiatives” in a variety of fields (e.g. energy, transport, food production), at different scales (e.g. neighbourhood, watershed, intercontinental), and led by different actors (e.g. government,
industry, civil society). Our intention is to create the foundation for a network of support and exchange.

Keynotes-

Deepa Joshi (Gender, Youth and Inclusion Lead: International Water Management Institute);

Sarah Marie Hall (Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, ISRF Political Economy Research Fellow: University of Manchester);

Patrick Bigger (Lecturer, Critical Geographies Group, Lancaster Environment Centre: University of Lancaster)

A virtual Q&A session with Prof Gillian Hart (UC Berkeley)

–

Participation is free, but numbers are limited (maximum 20) – full call and short application form: https://criticalethnographies.wordpress.com/ – Please apply by 25 October 2019!

Non-academic practitioners, PhD students and early career researchers are particularly encouraged to apply, especially (but not exclusively) those from the North West Social Science Doctoral Training Partnership universities. Some financial support is available for participants without institutional funding.

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MethodsX 2019/20 Stream Meeting – Interview-based Qualitative Research

The first meetings of each of the five MethodsX streams are scheduled for early December 2019.

Interview-based Qualitative Research: Tuesday 10 December 2019, University of Manchester, 11.00-14.00

All new ESRC-funded NWSSDTP postgraduate students are expected to attend one of these meetings and will be sent an email asking which stream they wish to join, with further details of the event to follow. Students who signed up to a stream last year will hear shortly from the stream coordinator with further details.

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MethodsX 2019/20 Stream Meeting – Archives, Collections and Documents of Life

The first meetings of each of the five MethodsX streams are scheduled for early December 2019.

Archives, Collections and Documents of Life: Thursday 12 December 2019, University of Manchester, 11.00-16.00

All new ESRC-funded NWSSDTP postgraduate students are expected to attend one of these meetings and will be sent an email asking which stream they wish to join, with further details of the event to follow. Students who signed up to a stream last year will hear shortly from the stream coordinator with further details.

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Manchester Methods Exchanges Conference

Manchester Methods Exchanges Conference is a student-led event which provides postgraduate researchers with the invaluable opportunity to present their research method ideas and experiences to a supportive and interdisciplinary audience. The conference brings together researchers from universities across the North West, which provides attendees with a fantastic opportunity to meet and gain advice from fellow academics from varied institutions and disciplines.

For further details of the events taking places throughout the day, please see the MNW Conference Programme 2017

Call for Papers:

MethodsNW are looking for PGR students at Lancaster, Manchester, Liverpool and Keele universities to take part in the conference-launch event of the new student-led Methods Exchanges programme in Manchester on 10 May 2017.

There are four conference themes that have separate call for papers and specific contacts to send your abstracts. Please read the descriptions carefully and apply to the specified email listed in the call.

Theme One: Archives and Collections

This strand focuses on the practical challenges facing students when using archives and collections, but will also reflect on some theoretical aspects. Themes to expand upon include (but are not limited to):

• Personal experiences of working with archives/collections, for “good” or “bad”.
• How best to prepare ahead of engaging with archives/collections – the things to know.
• Do you have a collection to bring along and discuss? – How did you/others use it, etc.
• Having to create your own archive/collection in the course of your studies – pros/cons.
• Can the provenance of archives/collections shape the way we use them? Should it?
• Does digitisation affect engagement? How will digital information shape future sources?

Proposals for papers exploring these themes (or others) are welcome from any disciplinary perspective, in relation to any academic experience. Abstracts of no more than 250 words must be sent by 5pm on 10 April, 2017 to Dalinder Sall (dalinder.sall@manchester.ac.uk).

This is an ideal opportunity for doctoral students to present on their research methods and/or personal experience, to an interdisciplinary audience of PGRs and invited academic staff, in an informal, workshop-style environment. Presentations will be ten minutes long, and will be followed by questions and discussion.

Theme Two: Fieldwork

We invite papers from postgraduate researchers who are planning to, or have experience with, conducting fieldwork. As a central component of ethnographic study, fieldwork approaches involve the researcher immersing themselves in a variety of settings, and collecting data about a social group of interest using a range of techniques including, but not limited to, participant observation, interviews, photography, videography, and netnography. We invite papers which relate to, but are not limited to, the following key topics:

• Managing the ‘messiness’ of fieldwork
• The interpretive gap between researcher and researched
• Researcher positionality and related ethical concerns
• Experiences of researcher vulnerability when conducting fieldwork
• Managing and maintaining field relations (during and after leaving the field)
• Recording, analysing, and disseminating nuanced and complex fieldnotes.

In addition to the presentations, attendees can expect to listen to a key speaker who will provide insights into the challenges they have personally faced with conducting field research. Furthermore, there will be the opportunity to engage with a panel of researchers who will be providing first-hand insights into their fieldwork experiences.Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words to fieldworktheme@gmail.com. Presenters should expect to present a 15-minute paper which addresses one or more of the fieldwork-related topics outlined above. Please state which topic(s) your paper addresses and your academic discipline at the top of your abstract.

Important dates:

• The deadline for abstract submissions is the 7th April 2017.
• The decision of the outcome will be emailed to applicants by the 14th April 2017.

If you have any queries, please get in contact via: fieldworktheme@gmail.com

Theme Three: Quantitative Methodologies

This theme represent a powerful method in Social Science that can contribute to both generalised theory testing and to exploratory analysis. However, they can also be highly technical and jargon heavy and can appear intimidating, impenetrable and insular to those who lack familiarity or experience in data analysis. This theme draws together doctoral students and researchers from across many disciplines who are using quantitative methodologies. It addresses the benefits and limitations of these methods, and provides a support network for those grappling with quantitative research methods to discuss common challenges and issues.
Themes to expand upon include (but are not limited to):

• Operationalising concepts in a quantitative analysis.
• Ensuring that research projects rooted in quantitative methodologies remain theory and topic driven.
• How to choose between competing analytical techniques and determine the most appropriate approach for your study.
• Balancing theoretical and pragmatic decisions in your research design.
• Dealing with imperfect data and the compromises this may entail to the overall research design.
• Techniques for dealing with missing data.

Proposals for papers exploring these themes (or other quantitative themes) are welcome from any disciplinary perspective, in relation to any academic experience. Abstracts of no more than 250 words must be sent by 5pm on 12 April 2017 to Dalinder Sall (dalinder.sall@manchester.ac.uk).

This is an ideal opportunity for doctoral students to present on their research methods and/or personal experience, to an interdisciplinary audience of PGRs and invited academic staff, in an informal, workshop-style environment. Presentations will be ten minutes long, and will be followed by questions and discussion.

Theme Four: New Forms of Data

This theme focuses on the opportunities opened up by the new forms of data that have become available as a result of technological, computational and social changes in the last decade. As the ESRC (2016) notes, social science researchers across multiple fields are increasingly working with forms of data “created by new technologies, connections and processes” and that these new forms “are rapidly emerging as important to supplement, enhance and in some cases replace datasets collected by traditional means”.
Postgraduate researchers across multiple fields engaging with the ‘digital’ broadly conceived are encouraged to submit proposals for papers describing the current progress of their research, with an emphasis on how it leverages new forms of data. Topics of interest to expand upon include (but are in no way limited to) the following topics of interest:

• Internet data: derived from social media and other online interactions (including data gathered by connected people and technologies, e.g. mobile devices, wearables, the Internet of Things)
• Tracking data: monitoring the movement of people and objects (including GPS/geolocation data, traffic and other transport sensor data, CCTV images, etc.)
• Satellite and aerial data: e.g. Google Earth, landsat, infrared, radar mapping, etc.
• ‘Big’ archival data: massive repositories of texts, audio, visual and video materials that require machine-assisted navigation and analysis
• Visualising data: new approaches to aesthetics and analytics of data visualisation (including 3D modelling and printing, virtual reality, geospatial displays).

Presentations will be ten minutes long, and will be followed by questions and discussion. Abstracts of no more than 250 words may be submitted as a Word document no later than 5:00pm on 14 April, 2017 to Loretta Anthony-Okeke (loretta.okeke@manchester.ac.uk).

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The challenges and opportunities for collaborating with substance testing services

A free event for local authorities, public health teams, police, event organizers, promoters, media, clubbers, drug users and interested others.

Under global prohibition, users of illegal drugs cannot be assured of the content of the drugs they take.  Services that provide forensic testing of substances submitted by users are leading the way in allowing drug users to make more informed choices.  But what are the legal, moral and practical challenges of providing this kind of service?  We find out from three leading European testing services.

Confirmed speakers:

• Monica Barratt (Drug Policy Modelling Program, UNSW, Australia)
• Mireia Ventura (Energy Control testing service, Spain)
• Tibor Brunt (DIMS testing service, the Netherlands)
• Fiona Measham (Co-founder of The Loop, UK)
• Henry Fisher (Policy Director, VolteFace POlicy Innovation Hub)
• Oliver Sutcliffe (Manchester Metropolitan University)

 

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methods@manchester Summer School: Creative Approaches to Qualitative Researching

The Creative Approaches to Qualitative Researching course forms a part of the methods@manchester Summer School 2017, taking place 26-30 June and 3-7 July 2017.  The Summer School features a number of qualitative researching, quantitative research and software courses.

Course content overview

This intermediate level course offers a hands-on introduction to creative approaches to doing qualitative research. The various stages of research will be covered, from data collection and analysis through to writing with qualitative data. We begin by introducing what we mean by doing qualitative research creatively, before moving on to consider ‘Facet methodology’, an inventive orientation to researching the multidimensionality of everyday lives, which puts the researcher’s creativity and imagination at the heart of methodological practice. The course also explores some of the practical and ethical issues in using creative methods. Participants will be given a practical and hands-on introduction to a range of creative qualitative methods, including visual methods and ‘material methods’. The course will also cover key principles in qualitative data analysis, and how these can be put into practice. Finally, we discuss practical and intellectual strategies for writing with qualitative data, and consider how it is possible to theorise, or write conceptually, with such data. The course includes several practical workshop exercises involving creating and analysing qualitative data, where participants will have the opportunity to work with their own data.

Course objectives:

This course will

• Introduce students to creative methods both as an approach, and as a means of generating social science research data
• Introduce students to a range of creative methods
• Give students practical experience in the use of creative methods
• Introduce students to analytical strategies appropriate to creative methods
• Introduce students to strategies for writing with qualitative data

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methods@manchester Summer School: Getting Started in R – an introduction to data analysis and visualisation

The Getting Started in R – an introduction to data analysis and visualisation course forms a part of the methods@manchester Summer School 2017, taking place 26-30 June and 3-7 July 2017.  The Summer School features a number of qualitative researching, quantitative research and software courses.

Course content overview

R is an open source programming language and software environment for performing statistical calculations and creating data visualisations. It is rapidly becoming the tool of choice for data analysts with a growing number of employers seeking candidates with R programming skills.

This course will provide you with all the tools you need to get started with data analysis and visualisation with R. We will introduce the tidyverse, a collection of R packages created by Hadley Wickham and others which provides an intuitive framework for using R for data analysis. Students will learn the basics of R programming and how to use R for effective data analysis. Practical examples of data analysis on social science topics will be provided.

Course outline
1. R and the ‘tidyverse’
This session will introduce R & RStudio and cover the basics of R programming and good coding practice. We will also discuss R packages and how to use them, with a particular focus on those that make up the ‘tidyverse’. We also introduce R Markdown which will be used to report our analyses throughout the course.
2. Import and Tidy
Data scientists spend about 60% of their time cleaning and organizing data (CrowdFlower Data Science Report 2016: 6). This session will show you how to ‘tidy’ your data ready for analysis in R. In particular, we’ll show you how to take data stored in a flat file, database, or web API, and load it into a dataframe in R. We will also talk about consistent data structures, and how to achieve them.
3. Transform
Together with importing and tidying, transforming data is one of the key element of data analysis. We will cover subsetting your data (to narrow your focus), creating new variables from existing ones, and calculating summary statistics.
4. Visualise
Data visualisation is what brings your data to life. This session will provide you with the skills and tools to create the perfect (static and interactive) visualisation for your data.
5. Bringing it all together
In this last session we review all we have learned on this course, and think about how we can bring it all together in dynamic outputs, such as interactive documents, plots, and Shiny applications.

Course objectives:

After this course, users should be able to:

• implement the basic operations of R;
• read data in multiple forms;
• clean, manipulate, explor and visualise data in R

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methods@manchester Summer School: Structural Equation Modelling with MPlus

The Structural Equation Modelling with MPlus course forms a part of the methods@manchester Summer School 2017, taking place 26-30 June and 3-7 July 2017 at the University of Manchester.  The Summer School features a number of qualitative researching, quantitative research and software courses.

Course content overview

This course gives a hands on introduction to what is possible in a latent variable analysis framework using Mplus. Building up the different sides of latent variable modelling and structural equation modeling step by step, eight different types of analysis are tackled.

Regression, Path Analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis, Item Response Theory, Measurement modelling, Latent Class Analysis, Longitudinal Analysis and lastly, hybrids of these are all topics of the course covered in lectures and practical analysis in Mplus.

Bringing your own data and research questions is highly recommended!

Course objectives:

1. Distinguish and understand different types of latent variable analysis;
2. Learn how to do basic and advanced structural equation modelling;
3. Understand how to combine different techniques in one model; and
4. Learn how to use Mplus

Course timetable

Day one
Afternoon – Regression

Day two
Morning – Path Analysis
Afternoon – Confirmatory Factor Analysis

Day three
Morning – Item Repsonse Theory
Afternoon – Measurement Modelling.

Day four
Morning – Latent Class Analysis
Afternoon – Longitudinal Modelling

Day five
Morning – Model Building

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methods@manchester Summer School: Generalized Linear Models: a comprehensive system of analysis and graphics using R and the Rcommander

The Generalized Linear Models: a comprehensive system of analysis and graphics using R and the Rcommander course forms a part of the methods@manchester Summer School 2017, taking place 26-30 June and 3-7 July 2017.  The Summer School features a number of qualitative researching, quantitative research and software courses.

Course content overview

This is a general course in data analysis using generalized linear models.  It is designed to provide a relatively complete course in data analysis for post-graduate students.  Analyses for many different types data are included; OLS, logistic, Poisson, proportional-odds and multinomial logit models, enabling a wide range of data to be modelled.  Graphical displays are extensively used, making the task of interpretation much simpler.

A general approach is used which deals with data (coding and manipulation), the formulation of research hypotheses, the analysis process and the interpretation of results.  Participants will also learn about the use of contrast coding for categorical variables, interpreting and visualising interactions, regression diagnostics and data transformation and issues related to multicollinearity and variable selection.

The software package R is used in conjunction with the R-commander and the R-studio.  These packages provide a simple yet powerful system for data analysis.  No previous experience of using R is required for this course, nor is any previous experience of coding or using other statistical packages.

This course provides a number of practical sessions where participants are encouraged to analyse a variety of data and produce their own analyses.  Analyses may be conducted on the networked computers provided, or participants may use their own computers; the initial sessions cover setting up the software on lap-tops (all operating systems are allowed).

Course objectives:

The main objective of this course is to provide a general method for modelling a wide range of data using regression-based techniques.  Participant will be able to select, run and interpret models for continuous, ordered and unordered data using modern graphical techniques.

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methods@manchester Summer School: Introduction to social network analysis using UCINET and Netdraw

The Introduction to social network analysis using UCINET and Netdraw course forms a part of the methods@manchester Summer School 2017, taking place 26-30 June and 3-7 July 2017.  The Summer School features a number of qualitative researching, quantitative research and software courses.

Course content overview

This is an introductory course, covering the concepts, methods and data analysis techniques of social network analysis. The course is based on the book “Analyzing Social Networks” by Borgatti et al. (Sage) and all participants will be issued with a copy of the book. The course begins with a general introduction to the distinct goals and perspectives of social network analysis, followed by a practical discussion of network data, covering issues of collection, validity, visualization, and mathematical/computer representation. We then take up the methods of detection and description of structural properties, such as centrality, cohesion, subgroups and positional analysis techniques. This is a hands on course largely based around the use of UCINET software, and will give participants experience of analyzing real social network data using the techniques covered in the workshop. No prior knowledge of social network analysis is assumed for this course.

Course objectives:

This course will

• Introduce the idea of Social Network Analysis
• Explain how to describe and visualise networks using specialist software (UCINET)
• Explain key concepts of Social Network Analysis (e.g. Cohesion, Brokerage).
• Provide hands-on training to use software to investigate social network structure

Course timetable

Day one
Introduction to Social Network Analysis, terminology and the software UCINET/Netdraw.  Chapters 1 and 2

Day two
Morning – Collecting social network data and research design. Chapters 3 and 4
Afternoon – Data management and visualisation. Chapters 5 and 7

Day three
Morning – Multivariate techniques and whole networks. Chapters 6 and 9.
Afternoon – Centrality and ego networks. Chapters 10 and 15.

Day four
Morning – Equivalence and core-periphery. Chapter 12
Afternoon – Subgroups and two-mode networks. Chapters 11 and 13

Day five
Morning – Testing hypothesis and large networks. Chapters 8 and 14.
Chapter numbers refer to the book “Analyzing Social Networks) by Borgatti et al. (Sage).  Timetable is subject to change.

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methods@manchester Summer School: Statistical analysis of social networks

The Statistical Analysis of Social Networks course forms a part of the methods@manchester Summer School 2017, taking place 26-30 June and 3-7 July 2017.  The Summer School features a number of qualitative researching, quantitative research and software courses.

Course content overview

This is an introduction to statistical analysis of networks. While no strict prerequisites are assumed, you might find it helpful to have some basic knowledge of social network analysis beforehand. To benefit fully from the course requires a basic knowledge of standard statistical methods, such regression analysis. The course aims to give a basic understanding of and working handle on drawing inference for structure and attributes, both cross-sectionally as well as longitudinally. A fundamental notion of the course will be how the structure of observed graphs relate to various forms of random graphs. This will be developed in the context of non-parametric approaches and elaborated to analysis of networks using exponential random graph models (ERGM) and stochastic actor-oriented models. The main focus will be on explaining structure but an outlook to explaining individual-level outcomes will be provided.

The participant will be provided with several hands-on exercises, applying the approaches to a suite of real world data sets. We will use the stand-alone graphical user interface package MPNet and R. In R we will learn how to use the packages ‘sna’, ‘statnet’, and ‘RSiena’. No familiarity with R is assumed but preparatory exercises will be provided ahead of the course.

Course objectives:

This course will

• Introduce how statistical evidence relates to social networks
• Explain how to draw inference about key network mechanisms from observations
• Provide hands-on training to use software to investigate
  • social network structure
  • tie-formation in cross-sectional data
  • tie-formation in longitudinal data
  • take into account network dependencies between individuals

Course timetable

Day one
Introduction to working with networks in R

Day two
Morning – Subgraphs and null distributions and ERGM rationale
Afternoon – ERGMs and dependence

Day three
Morning – ERGM: Issues and technicalities
Afternoon – SAOM: introduction to longitudinal modelling

Day four
Morning – SAOM: introduction to longitudinal modelling
Afternoon – Extensions and further issues

Day five
Morning – Influence, contagion, and outlook to further issues.
Timetable is subject to change.

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methods@manchester Summer School: Integrated Mixed-Methods Research including QCA

The Integrated Mixed-Methods Research including QCA course forms a part of the methods@manchester Summer School 2017, taking place 26-30 June and 3-7 July 2017.  The Summer School features a number of qualitative researching, quantitative research and software courses.

Course content overview

This summer school strand approaches mixed methods from the viewpoint that methods can be integrated not separated at the analysis stage.  It focuses on the use of case-studies and the case-study comparative method in mixed-methods research contexts.  The content focuses on four topics –

• mixed methods data management;
• qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) and the comparative method;
• fuzzy set analysis of pathways of causality; and
• methods of using qualitative data to strengthen an argument and make the analysis rigorous and transparent.

The school offers unique new training, developed specifically for this outlet, in several of these areas. This one-week event involves 28 hours of contact time of which about 5-6 hours are computer practicals led by the experienced tutors, Wendy Olsen and Steph Thomson, based on previous experiences with similar kinds of materials. The computer practicals for QCA include applications of NVIVO, fsQCA, SPSS, and Excel software.  We have a partial overlap with the Factor Analysis Mixed Methods Stream.  The Factor Analysis students are using SPSS AMOS, STATA, and MPLUS software as well as learning about multiple methods for gaining original knowledge. There is 7/16 overlap of the two streams (7 sessions out of 16).

The organisation of the course involves lectures, active learning and a project.  Each day up to two lectures and one ‘lectorial’ occur.  A lectorial is active learning led from the front with guided small group work.  The project is individually done and will lead to the creation of a poster display with hot links.  Participants may want to bring their own laptops (but it’s optional).

Course objectives:

The aims of the course are:

• To examine seminal papers using mixed methods and discuss rigour in comparative research. To learn more about Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA).
• To experience in practical settings how to use NVIVO for systematic data handling.
• To introduce Boolean algebra and Venn diagrams.
• To apply QCA ideas to personal projects, either using data offered in the course or the data you bring to the course.  We show you how to use Excel software and fsQCA freeware.
• To examine fuzzy set histograms and scattergrams.
• To link NVIVO with SPSS for qualitative+demographic or survey data.
• To Practice making presentations using students’ own data and well-constructed logical arguments.
• To practice debating-format and/or panel discussion about knowledge construction.

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methods@manchester Summer School: Factor Analysis for Integrated Mixed Methods Research

The Factor Analysis for Integrated Mixed Methods Research course forms a part of the methods@manchester Summer School 2017, taking place 26-30 June and 3-7 July 2017.  The Summer School features a number of qualitative researching, quantitative research and software courses.

Course content overview

This summer school strand approaches mixed methods from the viewpoint that methods can be integrated not separated at the analysis stage.  It focuses on the use of case-studies and the case-study comparative method in mixed-methods research contexts.  The content focuses on the topics:

• mixed methods data management;
• factor analysis using both confirmatory methods, and latent factor analysis within structural equation modelling; and
• methods of using qualitative data to strengthen an argument and make the analysis rigorous and transparent.

The school offers unique new training, developed specifically for this outlet, in several of these areas. This one-week event involves 28 hours of contact time of which about 5-6 hours are computer practicals led by the experienced tutor, Wendy Olsen, based on previous experiences with similar kinds of materials. The computer practicals for factor analysis include applications of SPSS AMOS which has a graphical interface (nice pathway diagrams), STATA which from version 15 also has such an interface, and Excel software.  There is 7/16 overlap of a comparative research stream (“QCA and Fuzzy Sets”) with this Factor Analysis mixed-methods stream (7 sessions out of 16).  Thus, you will meet people who also use qualitative research and do comparative projects.  Your knowledge of epistemology and realist philosophy of science will grow, giving a good underpinning to your statistical and survey research.

The organisation of the course involves lectures, active learning and a project.  Each day up to two lectures and one ‘lectorial’ occur.  A lectorial is active learning led from the front with guided small group work.  The project is individually done and will lead to the creation of a poster display with hot links.  Participants may want to bring their own laptops (but it’s optional).

Course objectives:

The aims of the course are:

• To examine seminal papers using mixed methods and discuss rigour in comparative research.
• To introduce the idea of measurement error and measurement models, and contrast confirmatory with exploratory factor analysis.
• To use STATA and SPSS AMOS, and some students may use MPLUS. Both STATA and SPSS AMOS have graphical windows for planning a factor analysis model.
• To examine latent factor histograms and scattergrams, and interpret them from sociological and social-theory angles.
• To apply factor analysis.
• To Practice making presentations using students’ own data and well-constructed logical arguments.
• To practice debating-format and/or panel discussion about knowledge construction.

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NWCDTP/ NWSSDTP Research Impact PGR training event

Research impact has become an integral part of the academic experience, and for those planning a career in academia an early understanding of the basics are essential to ensure students are properly prepared for job applications, funding bids, and the drivers of Universities around research assessment. For those planning careers outside HEIs the benefits of networking, promotion of research and the needs of business are equally relevant.

For those early in their PhDs engagement with the principles of the impact agenda can be of huge benefit in supporting your research directly, building a portfolio of evidence, creating new opportunities and raising your profile. An understanding of the current Research Excellent Framework (REF) can also help you understand better how your University operates. This event will enable students to work in this area, to think carefully about their future research plans and outreach ideas, to become future research leaders.

If you don’t think your own area of research has potential impact, then you need to come to this event. Every discipline in a University provides examples to the government of the practical influence of their research area, and every single subset of every discipline has potential audiences outside of academia. This event will enable students to think in new ways about their own research, and give them tools/vocabulary/ insight into how to develop their own impact activities in future. It will open them up to new opportunities and to networking that will enhance their own research and that of their peers.

The event, tailored for all AHRC DTP students, and open to ESRC NWSSDTP funded students, will give an overview and help you understand just what impact is, and what it means to you and your own research. There will be a brief overview of the REF for context, and practical examples of how engaging with non-academic audiences can help your research and career.

A panel with cultural partners and other PGRs will explore the benefits of interacting with businesses, galleries and museums, including the benefits of placement schemes. There will then be a practical workshop to help you develop a personalised impact plan, to support and maximise the potential of your PhD project

There will be a cap of 50 places available for this event, so priority will be given to students funded through the DTPs.

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Methods Fair 2017

This year’s Methods Fair will be held on 1 November at The University of Manchester. The theme is creative data presentation and visualisation.  The event will be held in the Roscoe Building on the University of Manchester Oxford Road Campus.

Researchers use a range of methodologies, some which automatically lend themselves to presenting data in creative ways and others, less so. At the annual Methods Fair methods@manchester are celebrating the inventive ways research findings are presented and communicated. Researchers use different medium and formats to present their data triggering a variety of our senses.  They explore these from a range of perspectives across the Humanities. They aim to bring together and inspire postgraduate researchers and academics, as well as those working in industry.

The keynote will be delivered by Simon Ruding, Director of Theatre in Prison and Probation (TiPP) and Dr Jo Deakin, School of Law, University of Manchester.

This year, methods@manchester invite postgraduate researchers to enter a photography competition. They ask that participants capture their research or an issue related to it in one photographic image.  Blackwell’s vouchers will be awarded to those in 1st (£150), 2nd (£100) and 3rd (£50) places. Shortlisted images will be displayed at the Fair.

• Read more about the competition.

What to expect

• Methods-rated plenaries and workshops from leading academics and PhD candidates
• opportunities to find out more about methods training
• the chance to meet and network with researchers in your field
• exhibitions.

Booking for Methods Fair 2017 is open via eventbrite.

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Communicating your research to diverse audiences

Friday 1 July 2016, 10.30am-4.00pm

Venue: Lancaster University Management School – Lecture Theatre 1

Speakers: Marcus Baron, Marketing Executive, Ernst & Young.  Helen Merrills, Senior Consultant, Communications Management. Holly Mills, Commissioning Editor, The Conversation

How do you communicate your work to people who will be interested in it? How do you make sure people who might use the work get to know about it?

Telling others about your research can be very satisfying and is increasingly a requirement in academic jobs.

Top communication professionals who have worked with academics to gain broad reach for their ideas and their research will share insights from a range of contexts. They will explore with you how complex ideas are distilled and presented for intended audiences. They will look at different communication channels such as press releases, social media, professional reports.

This workshop is interactive – you’ll hear from the professionals, but much of the day will be spent identifying what is ‘newsworthy’ from your research and who should hear about it, as well as creating and critiquing communications.

Students at all stages of their research will benefit from the workshop – from early stage researchers with an interesting perspective to those wanting to stand out for their impact and engagement in job applications.

Hosted by:
Gillian Hopkinson (Lancaster University Management School)
Anthony Hesketh (Lancaster University Management School)

Further details available on this flyer:

• NWDTC Communicating Your Research

Contact s.patterson@lancaster.ac.uk for more information and booking.

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Exploring Feminist Legal Research

Wednesday 29 June 2016, 1pm-3pm

Venue: University of Liverpool, Room TBC

Instructor: Dr. Jamie-Lee Mooney

This short research seminar will explore some of the issues raised by feminist research. The aims and objectives of this session are as follows:

• To raise awareness of law’s relationship with other disciplines.
• To examine the way in which feminist theories and perspectives can be applied to law.
• To understand that critique of the law does not have to be internal.
• To consider the pros and cons of feminist perspectives in legal research.
• To explore the theoretical insights of different schools of feminist legal theory and their application to feminist law reform.
• To explore whether your PhD thesis could/does incorporate a feminist perspective.

Please register at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/exploring-feminist-legal-research-tickets-19496711188

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Interdisciplinary NWDTC PGR Conference: Method, measurement and the problem of scale

Tuesday 21 June 2016, 12pm-4.45pm

Venue: The University of Manchester, Cordingley Lecture Theatre

Scale is a problem that researchers of all kinds, whether they turn their analytical attention to the big or the small, the present or the past, grapple with as a feature of what they study. Scale poses problems in terms of methodological approaches and techniques (how do we cope with data on a very large or very small scale?), but scale and scales/scaling are also concepts/tools we employ to address those problems. While scale has gained renewed visibility through discussions of the potentials and pitfalls of working with Big Data and digital devices, it is an issue which is closely tied to age-old debates on measurement and representation – how do you build scales that capture or allow us to better understand the character of social phenomena of all kinds? How do you make sense of the scales social actors employ to make sense of and manage the world? Increasingly, researchers also have to think about what might be involved in scaling up or scaling down, i.e. in moving between scales, and what constitutes the appropriate level for social inquiry.

The purpose of this workshop, aimed at DTC students, is to bring together leading researchers working across different fields of inquiry, each with significant international expertise in the social science and arts and humanities, to discuss and reflect upon the problem of scale in a variety of its contemporary forms and ways of productively and creatively engaging with it.

The workshop will take the form of six talks, an interactive problem-focused session and a roundtable discussion.

Further information is available in the event flyer:

• NWDTC Interdisciplinary Workshop Problem With Scale

Presenters are set to include Dr Kenneth Smith (Liverpool), Professor Rachel Gibson (Manchester), Dr Andrew Redden (Liverpool), Dr Thomas House (Manchester) and Professor Peter Diggle (Lancaster)

12.00 – 12.30pm	Welcome
12.30 – 1.00pm	Scales in music: symmetry and asymmetry	Dr Kenneth Smith (Liverpool)
1.00 – 1.30pm	The challenges of merging survey data with big data	Professor Rachel Gibson (Manchester)
1.30 – 2.00pm	Design and analysis of longitudinal studies: the impact of correlation scale	Professor Peter Diggle (Lancaster)
2.00 – 2.30pm	Interactive problem focussed session
2.30 – 2.45pm	Break
2.45 – 3.15pm	Getting big information from small data	Dr Thomas House (Manchester)
3.15 – 3.45pm	Scale: History and the collapse of time	Dr Andrew Redden (Liverpool)
3.45 – 4.45pm	Roundtable

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Telling Stories With Research: Narratological Analysis as a Method for Writing

Monday 16 May 2016, 3pm-5pm

Venue: University of Liverpool, Room TBC

Instructor: Dr Will Slocombe

In this workshop, Dr. Will Slocombe will talk about how narratological principles and an orientation to “telling stories” can be employed as a method for writing and editing academic work, including theses, articles and monographs. Aimed primarily at PhD students, this workshop is also open to academic researchers.

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Qualitative Quandaries: Analysing Language

Thursday 5 May 2016, 11am-4pm

Venue: Lancaster University, George Fox Building, Lecture Theatre 5

Hosted by Gillian Hopkinson (Lancaster University Management School) and Anthony Hesketh (Lancaster University Management School).

Deciding how to tackle and justify the analysis of our qualitative data is one of the most challenging aspects of academic life. In this session, with arguably the global leaders in their field, you can explore:

• Critical Discourse Analysis with Norman Fairclough and Isabella Fairclough
• Corpus Linguistic Analysis with Tony McEnery
• Grounded Theory with Haina Zhang

These interactive sessions will:

• Provide an overview of the main techniques
• Offer practical examples and hands-on experience of using these techniques of qualitative analysis
• Allow you to discuss and reflect on what each of these techniques might contribute to your thesis.

The session represents an important milestone for research students at the beginning of their studies, through to those writing up their thesis and seeking to underpin the veracity of their qualitative analysis and theory building.

10.30am – 11.00am Registration
11.00am -12.30pm Critical Discourse Analysis – Norman Fairclough (Lancaster University) and Isabella Fairclough (UCLAN)
12.30pm – 1.00pm Lunch
1.00pm – 2.30pm Corpus Linguistic Analysis – Tony McEnery (Lancaster University)
2.30pm – 2.45pm Coffee Break
2.45pm – 4.00pm Grounded Theory – Haina Zhaing (Lancaster University)

The session is open to all PhD students from all departments and also students from Manchester and Liverpool University.

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An Introduction to the European and International Dimensions of Legal Research

Thursday 5 May 2016, 11am-1pm

Venue: University of Liverpool, Room TBC

Instructors: Dr. Rob Knox and Dr. Nuno Ferreira

The first part of this session will be devoted to exploring some of the issues raised by postgraduate research in international law. It will discuss some of the basic framework of international law (especially customary international law and treaties) and international institutions (particularly the United Nations, the international financial institutions and various international tribunals), focussing on some of the specific challenges that research in these areas bring. In the discussion we will also discuss some of the unique methodological and theoretical challenges that the study of international law brings, and how this relates to wider fields of research.

The second part of the session will explore the European dimensions of postgraduate research. Both the Council of Europe and the European Union frameworks will be discussed, with a focus on both organisations’ characteristics, institutions, legal sources, law-making mechanisms, activities and policies. There will be the opportunity to discuss how to find out more about these two organisations and, especially, how this can all relate to your own research.

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Elicitation Techniques and Narrative Analysis

Tuesday 3 May 2016, 9.30am-1.30pm

Venue: University of Manchester

Presenter: Emma Temple-Malt

This half day workshop aims to show how elicitation techniques used in semi-structured/narrative interviews can be a powerful tool for capturing aspects of people’s everyday lives. It also offers practical suggestions of how you might analyse data where elicitation techniques have been used.

The first part of the workshop explains why you might want to use elicitation techniques to complement qualitative interviews and offers an overview of several elicitation techniques. It also discusses some potential issues and barriers that need thinking through when using elicitation techniques in interviews.

The workshop includes practical/hands-on activities to facilitate learning. Therefore participants are asked to complete a relational time-line prior to attending the workshop and to bring an object and/or photograph that relates to a particular moment noted down on their time-line. The time-line, object/photograph will be used in a paired activity to narrate this particular moment. Using elicitation techniques personally to tell stories gives participants the opportunity to experience first hand the power that using objects/photos in the process of telling stories about everyday lives can have.

The second part of the workshop outlines and offers suggestions for how you might thematically analyse interviews where elicitation techniques have been used.

Participants are invited to have a go at thematically analysing portions of qualitative interview transcripts that focus on civilly partnered couples in a joint interview, narrating their relational time-lines. Participants will be encouraged to explore the theme of how couples in joint interviews approach the narration of their time-lines.

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Critical Discourse Analysis

Friday 22 April 2016, 9am-5pm (2 sessions)

Venue: University of Liverpool – Seminar Room 8, South Campus Teaching Hub.

Instructor: Dr Andrew Kirton

This module is designed to introduce students to the theory and practice of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) over two intensive sessions. Students are introduced to a critical understanding of discourse, which in turn encourages the analysis of language use in relation to questions of power in society. The module seeks to enable students’ engagement in such analyses, introducing them to appropriate methods and techniques, and providing them the opportunity to put these into practice.

1st Session: Friday 22 April 2016, 9am – 5pm
2nd Session: Friday 6 April 2016, 9am – 12pm

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Using Foucault’s Methods

Monday 18 April 2016, 3pm-5pm (4 sessions)

Venue: University of Liverpool – Seminar Room 4, South Campus Teaching Hub.

Instructor: Dr Nicole Vitellone

This short course over 4 sessions guides students through the key points, concerns and issues raised by Michel Foucault’s methods and theory. Covering his key texts we address Foucault’s method as an important device for studying power and society. In so doing the module seeks to engage students with the uses of Foucault’s method for social science research and social inquiry.

The four sessions will be on the 18 & 25 April, and 2 & 9 May 2016 (Mondays) between 3pm and 5pm.

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Narrative Interviewing

Thursday 14 April 2016, 12.30pm-5pm (2 sessions)

Venue: University of Liverpool – Room TBC

Instructors: Dr Ciara Kierans and Dr Jessie Cooper

This two-day short course prepares the postgraduate researcher for work with narrative. Covering key contributions to this form of inquiry, the course will introduce the theoretical and analytical principles of narrative research; help build technical skills for conducting, transcribing and analysing narrative interviews and explore the contributions and limitations of the use of narrative inquiry in social science research.

1st Session: Thursday 14 April 2016, 12.30pm – 5pm
2nd Session: Friday 15 April 2016, 12.30pm – 5pm

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MNW One Day Symposium: Political Economy and Emotion: Into the heart of state, space and power

Monday 11 April 2016

Venue: University of Liverpool

This event brings together a range of academic expertise to create an interdisciplinary space for critical scholars to explore the role and significance of emotion in both facilitating and challenging power relations, social orders and state-political projects. The symposium will excavate state projects, the spatialization of power and the course of social-economic conflict and understand these are not merely ‘rational’ phenomena but as aspects of social relations that arise, fall, success and fail on the basis of the stability of power blocs understood, in part, as emotional and affective entities.

Speakers: Dr Roy Coleman, University of Liverpool – States of Emotion: Morbidity, make-believe and power
Dr Ben Anderson, University of Durham – Neoliberal effects
Professor Imogen Tyler, Lancaster University – Neoliberal stigma power
Dr Shona Hunter, University of Leeds – Challenging state suicide and other neoliberal fantasies
Dr Earl Gammon, University of Sussex – Narcissistic rage and neoliberal reproduction
Professor Stjepan Mestrovic, Texas A&M University – Conceptualizing postemotional justice in the courts

Further information on the symposium is available at the University of Liverpool website.

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Research Claims and Interpretative Contexts

Wednesday 24 March 2016, 1pm-2pm

Venue: University of Manchester

Presenter: Bryan Fanning

This seminar with be presented by Professor Bryan Fanning, Simon and Hallsworth visiting professor at the University of Manchester in the Centre on Dynamics of Ethnicity (Code).

Andrew Abbott emphasises how throughout the history of the social sciences heuristic dualisms between positivism and interpretativism can be seen to play out again and again at all levels of debate and analysis. The focus of this seminar is upon some of the ideological and normative contexts of academic interpretations of British urban policy that are found in literature views accompanying research on community activism and land use planning. The case study refers to field research undertaken in the London Borough of Haringey and the interpretative contexts to which such research might be related. The aim is to address challenges that emerge in relating many kinds of social science ‘evidence’ to wider debates.

Professor Fanning is a leading scholar on the topics of racism and immigration studies within ‘new’ migration destinations specifically within the Republic of Ireland. His work is also concerned with understanding intellectual history and the welfare economy. He has a longstanding research interest in the politics of community participation in the United Kingdom with a particular focus on Tottenham and the London Borough of Haringey. He is a proponent of examining racism through a historical lens in relation to nation building, nationalism and post-colonial identities. He is member of the Migration and Citizenship Research Initiative in University College Dublin and currently on the editorial board of The Irish Journal of Sociology and formerly of Translocations and sits on the Holocaust Education Trust Ireland (HETI). Along with his several monographs his two latest works are:

Fanning, B (2016) Irish Adventures in Nation Building. Manchester: Manchester, University Press
Dillion, D and Fanning, B (2011) Lessons for the Big Society: Planning, Regeneration and the Politics of Community Participation. Surrey, Ashgate

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Masterclass – Creating Effective Collaboration

Thursday 15 March 2016, 1pm-4pm

Venue: The University of Manchester

Instructor: Dr Nathan Ryder

Collaboration is a skillset with great benefits for postgraduate researchers, both in researching for their PhD and beyond. This highly interactive workshop is an opportunity for participants to reflect on their strengths, determine what they want and develop a constructive approach to current and future collaborations. In particular, participants will:

• recognise their greatest strengths and skills as collaborators;
• explore practically what makes collaborations work;
• identify their own collaboration goals.

This is an interactive session: participants will be expected to work in pairs and small groups, and share their ideas with the workshop.

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Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis

Thursday 10 March 2016, 1pm-5pm (2 sessions)

Venue: University of Liverpool – Room TBC

Instructors: Dr. Michael Mair, Dr. Philip Brooker and Dr. Chris Elsey

This two-day short-course is aimed at postgraduate and academic researcher interested in ethnomethodology and ethnomethodological conversation analysis. Focusing on ethnomethodological and conversation analytic approaches to the study of language, interaction and social practices, in practical terms it will cover (1) key works and ideas in both fields, (2) how to identify analytically interesting audio and video data, (3) how to work up audio and video data in and through the transcription process and (4) how to ‘build’ analyses of data individually and in collaboration with others.

Dates: Thursday 10 March & Friday 11 March
Times: 1pm-5pm

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Are Russell Group universities really “leading universities”?

Wednesday 9 March 2016, 1.00pm-2.30pm

Venue: University of Manchester

Presenter: Vikki Boliver

Dr Vikki Boliver, Senior Lecturer in Sociology/Social Policy at Durham University, leads a seminar on Cluster Analysis.

In 1992 the binary divide between universities and polytechnics was dismantled to create a nominally unitary system of higher education for the UK. Just a year later, the first UK university league table was published, and the year after that saw the formation of the Russell Group of self-proclaimed “leading universities”. This paper asks whether there are distinctive clusters of higher and lower status universities in the UK, and, in particular whether the Russell Group institutions can be said to constitute a distinctive elite tier.

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Interviewing

Monday 7 March 2016, 10am-1pm (3 sessions)

Venue: University of Liverpool – Teaching Room 410, Cypress Building (building 108, map ref E2)

Instructor: Prof. Jude Robinson

This short module on interviews is suitable for postgraduate students and research staff from all disciplines who require a period of additional supported study and reflection before they design and conduct their own research. Drawing on the rich sociological literature, students will be introduced to theories of why and when to use interviews and have the opportunity to develop research questions and learn how to conduct interviews as well as how to approach the preparation, analysis and writing up of data. The module is delivered over 3 workshops, each lasting for 3 hours, which will combine some lecture material, with discussions of the literature and issues, and practical exercises on conducting interviews and data analysis.

1st Session: Monday 7 March 2016, 10am-1pm
2nd Session: Monday 14 March 2016, 10am-1pm
3rd Session: Monday 21 March 2016, 10am-1pm

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Ethnographic Studies of Science and Technology

Thursday 3 March 2016, 1.30pm-6pm (2 sessions)

Venue: University of Liverpool – Room TBC

Instructors: Dr. Ciara Kierans and Dr. Jessie Cooper

This two-day short course is aimed at the postgraduate researcher interested in social science approaches and studies of medicine, science and technology. Drawing from ethnographic research in anthropology and sociology, we focus on foundational ethnographic texts in this field, theoretical and analytical concerns and arguments, and the integrated character of methods, analysis and writing in ethnographic inquiry.

1st Session: Thursday 3 March 2016, 1.30pm-6pm
2nd Session: Friday 4 March 2016, 1.30pm-6pm

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Visual Methods

Monday 22 February 2016, 1pm-5pm (2 sessions)

Venue: University of Liverpool – Seminar Room 4, South Campus Teaching Hub.

Instructor: Dr. Paul Jones

This two-day short-course is aimed at postgraduate and academic researchers who would like to learn more about sociological approaches to visual analysis. In particular, the module addresses some of the recurrent ways in which cities have been represented visually, and is so interested in how images of urban contexts are generated and disseminated. Paying specific attention to the work of i) photographers and ii) architects against this backdrop, the module is organised around preparatory reading of classic and contemporary research contributions, which will include discussion of how to identify analytically-relevant urban visual data, and a walking tour or Liverpool City Centre, addressed towards visual representations in situ. Assessment on the module is via a short research presentation, which is to be based on interrogation of visual data with reference to a technique of analysis specified within the module.

1st Session: Monday 22 February 2016, 1pm-5pm
2nd Session: Tuesday 23 February 2016, 1pm-5pm

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An introduction to the latest thinking in social impact measurement: Wellbeing valuation

Wednesday 10 February 2016, 1pm-2.30pm

Venue: University of Manchester

Presenter: David King – Housing Associations’ Charitable Trust

Social impact measurement is a hot topic at the moment. WIth governments scaling back the services they provide, greater burden is placed on charities and not-for-profits to support people. At the same time, there is more scrutiny over how money is spent, especially when a financial return cannot be identified. Social impact measurement proides a much needed perspective to evaluate all of an organisation’s activity.

HACT was first launched in 1960 to support housing associations, and now works closely with the housin gsector to meet changing needs with data services, impact analysis, and strategic research. As the UK’s largest not-for-profit sector, a simple way of assessing social impact was needed. Working with Daniel Fujiwara HACT devloped wellbeing valuation, which quickly became the industry standard.

This workshop will explore the methodology and explain how it has been used in the social housing sector, including a change to test the approach.

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Participatory Action Research

Tuesday 2 February 2016, 9am-5pm

Venue: University of Liverpool – 7-7a Abercromby Square (building 143, map ref D3), Seminar Room 1.

Instructor: Louise Hardwick

This one-day workshop is aimed at postgraduate and academic researchers interested in conducting a PAR with an identified collaborative community partner. There will opportunities for ‘shared conversations’ on issues involved in planning and conducting a PAR and consideration of: (1) theoretical perspectives that inform a PAR approach, (2) appropriate methods and activities for a PAR approach, (3) ethical considerations related to a PAR approach.

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Understanding Society Using Quantitative Methods

Monday 1 February 2016, 1pm-3pm (12 sessions)

Venue: University of Liverpool – Room 201, PC Teaching Centre. Eleanor Rathbone Building

Instructor: Dr. Peter Campbell

This module looks into the rationale and practice of analysing numerical data, largely derived from survey research, and the use of such data to understand the social world. It covers a range of skills from basic univariate and multivariate analysis techniques, to a consideration of the potential insights offered by longitudinal datasets and their analysis. General issues regarding the generation and usage of quantitative data will be considered, and from these first principles the particularities of longitudinal research design will subsequently be examined. The context in which quantitative analysis of the social world has arisen will also be considered.

Dates: Every Monday 1pm-3pm, from 1 February to 9 May (Dates and times TBC)

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Focus Groups

Monday 1 February 2016, 10am-12pm (4 sessions)

Venue: University of Liverpool – Seminar Room 8, South Campus Teaching Hub.

Instructor: Prof. Jude Robinson

This short module will help postgraduate students and research staff to design, plan and carry out focus group discussions. Using case studies to illustrate the application of focus groups to research particular issues, students will gain understandings of the theory, practicalities and ethics of using this method to elicit data, and how to prepare and analyse these data. This module consists of a series of 4 workshops, each two hours long, to be held on consecutive weeks, which will combine lectures and discussions with practical exercises within the group, as well as discussions about the wider literature.

The four sessions will be on the 1, 8, 15 and 22 February 2016 (Mondays) between 10am and 12pm.

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Telling Stories With Research: Narratological Analysis as a Method for Writing

Thursday 17 December 2015, 11am-1pm

Venue: University of Liverpool, Room TBC

Instructor: Dr Will Slocombe

In this workshop, Dr. Will Slocombe will talk about how narratological principles and an orientation to “telling stories” can be employed as a method for writing and editing academic work, including theses, articles and monographs. Aimed primarily at PhD students, this workshop is also open to academic researchers.

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From Social Disorder to Moral Order

Wednesday 9 December 2015, 2pm-4pm

Venue: University of Liverpool, Lecture Theatre 6, Rendall Building

Speaker: Dr. Dirk Lindebaum (dirklindebaum.eu)

Anger is ‘brief madness’ – the Roman lyric poet Horace once proclaimed. His observation rendered millennia ago retains its currency in today’s world of organizations, inasmuch as there are strong currents in the psychological and management literature that continue to cast anger in a negative light, as a destructive and disruptive force. Indeed, expressions of anger are often used interchangeably with hostile dispositions, such as aggression, abuse, anti-social behaviour or violence. Anger is thus cast both as an individual psychological disorder and as the cause of a social disorder. While certain fields of scholarship, like negotiation, leadership, and social movements studies have begun to recognize that anger may sometimes yield positive consequences, most of the literature continues to portray anger predominantly as an unwanted, disruptive and negative emotion.

This talk seeks to challenge this view by arguing that anger can be a positive force in society and organization. Drawing inspiration from the 1950s jury room drama Twelve Angry Men, a more equivocal and nuanced account of anger is proposed as an emotion that can help create and maintain a moral order and, subsequently, restore a social order.

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Researching within the LGBT Community

Thursday 3 December 2015, 1pm-4pm

Venue: University of Liverpool, School of the Arts Library, 19 Abercromby Square, L7 7BD

Organised with the University of Liverpool LGBT Staff + Postgraduate Network.

This event aims to bring together researchers whose work or interests are focused on the LGBT community, to demonstrate the breadth of research being undertaken in this field, and to discuss the opportunities and challenges of researching within this community.

Speakers include:

• Gareth Hagger-Johnson, UCL: The first pooling of UK population data in order to demonstrate mental health inequalities for LGB people
• Jennifer New, University of Liverpool: The experiences and needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and/or trans people seeking asylum and refugees living in Liverpool
• Periklis Papaloukas, De Montfort University: The psychosocial experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans persons living with multiple sclerosis
• Sean Ralph, The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre NHS Foundation Trust and University of Liverpool: A Qualitative Study on the Views and Experiences of Health Professionals on Discussing Sexual Orientation and Sexuality with Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Patients in an Oncology Setting
• Niamh Thornton, University of Liverpool: Visibility and production of queer Mexican literature and film

The session will consist of brief presentations from each of the speakers, a Q&A panel session and a networking opportunity over coffee.

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Sociology and Democratic Knowledge: Re-imagining Sociology After the Public University

25 November 2015 2.00pm – 4.00pm

University of Liverpool, The Moot Room, South Campus Teaching Hub

Speaker: Professor John Holmwood (University of Nottingham)

The talk addresses the rise of the public university and its association with a ‘citizenship complex’ that reconciles, market, bureaucracy and associationalism through an expanded conception of social rights (Parsons; Lockwood). On this understanding, sociology has a particular affinity with an egalitarian societal community and, therefore, the Parsonian emphasis on ‘professionalism’ has more in common with Burawoy’s ‘public sociology’ oriented to civil society than might otherwise seem to be the case. A problem arises when we recognize that the university is increasingly marketised and reduced to private rather than public interests as part of a general attack on social rights (especially in the US and UK). This is an attack which implicates sociology in its claims both to professional expertise and critique. How might this attack on social rights be understood and what are its implications for the university as a site of knowledge and public reason? How might sociology respond to the challenge?

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Blogging for Academics: A Practical Workshop

13 November 2015 10.00am – 4.30pm

University of Liverpool, Civic Design PC Teaching Centre, Gordon Stephenson Building

Instructor: Dr Jennifer Allanson (TupleSpace)

Blogging is a productive tool for communicating research at multiple stages of a project. This may be as a reflection on the process, dissemination of multi-media content, the creation of an archive, or reaching specialist and/or non-specialist audiences. In recent years, the LSE Impact Blog (http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/) has explored academic blogging as a tool with a particular focus on its use by Social Scientists and Nadine Muller (http://www.nadinemuller.org.uk/ ) has created a platform for Early Career Researchers in the Humanities. These have established its usefulness at multiple stages of projects and career trajectories. Whether you want to create a blog related to a specific project or to construct an academic self, the aim of this workshop is to provide you with the tools to do so. The day will consist of two halves. The first half will be dedicated to a reflection on the process of blogging and thinking about design and structure, and the second half will be a practical lab-based session on using WordPress for blogging. This will be a useful introductory session for new bloggers and a refresher for those who want to expand their use of WordPress for their projects. This session is open to researchers from PG level to established scholars. By the end of the day each participant will have a WordPress-hosted site of their own, which can then be developed further with support from the trainer. Training will be provided by Dr Jennifer Allanson of TupleSpace (www.tuplespace.net).

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Methods@Manchester Methods Fair

4 November 2015 11.00am – 4.30pm

The University of Manchester, Roscoe Building

The Methods Fair includes three strands of workshops and talks (12 workshops/talks in total taking place) a keynote presentation, publishing clinic, exhibitions by institutes and external organisations and a poster competition.

Keynote: Professor Jane Green, co-investigator of the British Election Study
Clinic: A publishing clinic will be run by Sage Publications
Prize: A prize will be awarded for the best poster competition. This competition is sponsored by Sage.

• Booking is essential
• Details of the poster competition and rules

Opportunity for presenters

A strand of the workshops/talks will be delivered by PhD candidates and will consist of a talk lasting approximately 20 minutes on the research methods which are proposed/used and why they have been chosen, whilst considering the overarching thesis topic and data being collected. Should any PhD candidates be interested in presenting at the Methods Fair, please let Mark Kelly know by email confirming thesis title, method used and a brief synopsis of the talk (mark.kelly@manchester.ac.uk)

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The Inaugural Regional Postgraduate Q-Step Event

Wales and South-West Postgraduate Event

19 October 2015 Cardiff University

The conference will mark the launch of the network and allow postgraduates in the network to hear about the research being done by colleagues across the different Q-Step centres.

You are invited to submit abstracts for oral presentations and/or poster presentations for the launch of the Q-Step Postgraduate Network.

This event is particularly relevant to the AQM framework as abstracts are sought from postgraduates on research projects directly related to or inspired by the Q-Step initiative and the ‘crisis’ of quantification in social sciences or projects using predominately quantitative research methods. Abstracts should be no longer than 300 words long and should be sent to event organisers at the email addresses below, no later than Monday 14th September.

Confirmation of acceptance will be sent out on or before Monday 21st September.

• Download the call for abstracts

For more information, please contact either Charlotte Brookfield (brookfieldC@cardiff.ac.uk) or Jennifer Hampton (hamptonJM1@cardiff.ac.uk).

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Research Data Management Workshop

6 – 7 October 2015

The University of Manchester

Organised by the UK Data Service and FOSTER

Good research data management is fundamental for high quality research. While many PhD students acquire the skills to collect and analyse data, the handling and managing of research data is not usually addressed in such methods training. Also, funding bodies and scientific journals increasingly require data created during publicly funded research or underpinning publications, to be openly available. This again requires good data skills and data management planning early in the research cycle.

From the early stage of the research design, through to the later stages of analysis and data storage, good data management equates to efficient research and the saving of time and resources.

Our two-day workshop, which combines both presentations and interactive activities, exercises and discussions, will provide PhD students with practical skills directly applicable to their own research. Drawing on a wide range of data – both quantitative and qualitative – the workshop will address the following key topics in data management:

• documentation and contextual description
• ethical and legal aspects of managing and sharing sensitive data
• anonymising research data for reuse
• writing a data management plan
• data handling (e.g. file organisation and data storage and security)
• data preparation

By the end of the workshop, participants will know how to apply good data management practices in their own research, and will be able to work more efficiently and effectively with data individually or as part of a research team, where data are often co-produced and shared.

This workshop is part of the FOSTER-CESSDA training series and is part funded by the European FOSTER project. Teaching will be delivered by trainers from across the CESSDA network.

Trainers:
Veerle Van den Eynden, UK Data Service
Libby Bishop, UK Data Service
Irena Vipavc Brvar, Slovenian Social Science Data Archives (ADP)
Anna Sofia Fink, National Archives/Danish Data Archive (DDA)

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Introduction to QGIS: Understanding and Presenting Special Data

1 October 2015 9.30am – 4.00pm

University of Liverpool, Training Room 1, Sydney Jones Library

Instructor: Dr Nick Bearman

This course will introduce spatial data and show you how to import and display spatial data within the open source GIS program QGIS. We will also cover creating choropleth maps, some basic spatial data analysis (e.g. calculating rates) and appropriate methods of visualising spatial data. By the end of the course you will be able to load data into QGIS, symbolise it effectively and be able to prepare a publication quality map.

No previous experience of GIS or QGIS is required, but some experience of using spatial data will be beneficial. Refreshments and lunch are provided, and numbers on the course are limited and allocated on a first come, first served basis.

If you are already familiar with the basic elements of GIS, you may wish to attend the course “Introduction to Using R for Spatial Analysis” instead where we focus on applying these GIS skills in R, and develop your spatial analysis skills (more details at http://geographicdatascience.com/training%20course/2015/07/19/R-Spatial-Analysis-Liverpool/).

Rates:

£45 – UK registered students
£85 – staff at UK academic institutions and research centres, UK-registered charity and voluntary organisations, staff in public sector and government
£200 – all other participants including staff from commercial organisations
Reduced prices are available for those less able to pay, please contact Nick Bearman for details.

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Managing Qualitative Research

Tuesday 17 March 2015 – Venue: Lancaster University

‘Writing by Numbers: a ‘proforma’ for doing and writing up qualitative research’ Professor John Burgoyne. 10:30am-12pm
This practical and interactive session helps you map out your research issues and shows how writing and the research process are inter-related.

Personal challenges in aligning research paradigms and methods Professor Caroline Gatrell 12.45pm – 1 pm
Personal experience of achieving your PhD: a reflection on perspectives Dr Valerie Bevan 1pm – 1.45pm
In this session Caroline first introduces the question of managing relationships between methodology (theoretical underpinnings of your thesis) and method (your research design). Valerie then shares her personal experience of aligning her data analysis and findings with theoretical perspectives in her PhD thesis.

Managing Emotion in Qualitative Research Interviews Professor Caroline Gatrell 1.45pm – 2.30pm
This session explores the challenges of managing emotion in qualitative interviews

Group work: questions and answers 2.45pm – 4 pm.

Space for participants to consider and discuss their own dilemmas in managing qualitative research.

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Transformative Social Science

Friday 17 October 2014 – Venue: University of Liverpool

Speakers: Professor Sandra Walklate, Professor Fernand Gobet, Professor Peter Wade, Dr Mark Elliot, Professor Michael Hughes, Professor Chris May

The third annual NWDTC Doctoral Student event will take place on the 18th June 2014 and will be centred on the subject of transformative social science. As such, the event will examine the development of ideas, discoveries or tools that radically change our understanding of existing concepts or practices, both within and beyond fields of academic research. The event will be organised around a panel discussion and series of workshops led by prominent researchers from Liverpool, Lancaster and Manchester in Politics, Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, Economics/Business and History. Open to all current DTC students.

Further details available on the University of Liverpool website.

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Methodological Innovation in Child and Infant Research Conference

29 September 2014 – Venue: University of Lancaster

This is a Methods North West conference focusing on the challenges and issues that arise when conducting research that involves children and infants. A range of eminent speakers will talk about their experiences using a range of methodological approaches (qualitative and quantitative) that cover child engagement through stories and play, video, drama and music, creation of measurement tools (eg questionnaires), coding complex information, and treating children as research partners and citizens.

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Master Classes Series: Freedom of Information and Transformative Research

Wednesday 5 March, 1 – 4pm

Venue: The Chandler Room, The Foresight Centre, University of Liverpool

Organised by engage@liverpool and co-sponsored by Methods North West.

Speakers

• Harmit Athwal, Campaign Against Racism and Fascism
• Graham Smith, Deputy Commissioner and Director of Freedom of Information, Information Commissioner’s Office
• David Whyte, University of Liverpool
• Stuart Wilks-Heeg, University of Liverpool
• Shiar Youseff, Corporate Watch
• Ian Shannon, former Deputy Chief Constable of North Wales Police

The third in our Master Classes series for 2013-14 brings together some of Britain’s most prominent experts on the use of freedom of information requests. The Master Class will hear those speakers discuss the research opportunities and the limitations presented by the freedom of information requests. This session will offer expert advice on how to make use of the sources of data held by public bodies. Participants will also have a chance to discuss their own research approaches and problems and to engage face-to-face with our speakers in an extended workshop.

Lunch will be provided. This Master Class is open to all staff and to postgraduate students in the UK. Attendance is free but places are limited so please ensure you book in advance.

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Researching Work and Family: Methods across disciplines

A one day Conference

Wednesday 19 June 2013 – Venue: Lancaster University Management School

Hosted by: Lancaster Methods. Convenor: Dr Caroline Gatrell, Doctoral Director, Lancaster University Management School

This workshop examines work and family research across disciplines (organizational psychology, sociology, management studies) from the viewpoint of the doctoral researcher. Leading scholars in the work-family field will talk about work-family research methods and our keynote speakers will be Professor David Morgan, University of Manchester and Professor Gary Powell, visiting from Connecticut University USA. Invited speakers also include Dr Eleanor Hamilton and Dr Caroline Gatrell (Lancaster University) and Dr Simon Burnett (Prudential plc).

This conference is aimed primarily at PhD students, however Masters students with a particular interest in these topic areas are also welcome. Limited places are available for students from outside the NWDTC.

For info we attach a link to a recent review of research on work, family and work-life balance (by Gatrell, Burnett, Cooper and Sparrow 2012) which you might find useful (pdf available from s.read@lancaster.ac.uk if you cannot access the link).

• Work–Life Balance and Parenthood: A Comparative Review of Definitions, Equity and Enrichment

Further information

This conference will be hosted by Lancaster University Management School for the benefit of students who are part of both the Lancaster/Liverpool/Manchester Doctoral Training Centre and Methods North West. The purpose of the conference will be to offer to research students new perspectives on work and family research across disciplines (organizational psychology, sociology, management studies). These will be considered from the viewpoint of the researcher.

David Morgan

The Morgan Centre at Manchester is named after David Morgan in order to celebrate his life-long commitment and contribution to the sociology of families and relationships. David taught in the Sociology department at the University of Manchester for almost 35 years. Since retiring he holds an Emeritus Professorship at Manchester together with visiting Professorships at Keele University and NTNU, Trondheim. His main interests have been family sociology (with a particular emphasis on family theory), gender and especially men and masculinities and auto/biographical studies.

Gary Powell

Professor Powell is an internationally renowned scholar on work and family, and gender and diversity issues in the workplace. He has extensively published over many years on the topics of work and family and women and men/gender and diversity in management.

All PhD students from Manchester, Liverpool and Lancaster and across disciplines are welcome. Up to 100 places may be booked on a first come first served basis.

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Live Data: Research in Real-Time

Thursday 24 January 2013 – University of Liverpool

The ubiquity of advanced information systems, the growth of social media and the emergence of new forms of data has pushed the problem of working with and managing real-time information to centre stage in various domains of social life: finance, economics, government, business, the workplace and more. The purpose of this one-day event is to bring together postgraduates, researchers and practitioners whose work involves tracking and analysing practices, processes and data in real-time. It will focus on two broad areas of research where ‘live data’ is a particular focus: first, quantitative approaches to handling and analysing new data sources, including real-time open, administrative, transactional, citizen-produced and event data; and, second, ethnomethodological studies of real-time information work. It will be of particular interest to researchers in a range of fields (from the social sciences through to computer science) with an interest in the study of new technologies, information infrastructures and practices. All speakers work with ‘live data’ but in different ways. The morning session deals with quantitative and computer science research methods while the afternoon shifts to detailed studies of information-using practices.

This one day symposium was hosted by Engage@liverpool in association with Methods NorthWest. For more details on the event, please see the engage@liverpool website.

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Ketso-based workshop for Methodology Review and Development

Monday 9 July 2012

Room 2.16, Arthur Lewis Building, University of Manchester

This Ketso based workshop is designed to support students moving towards the end of the first year of their PhD. The focus of the session will be to help you to clarify the (details of) methods that you will be using in your PhD research; identify problems and issues that need to be address in applying those methods and to develop a road map through your PhD research.

The session will naturally complement formal end of year review review processes.

Aims of the day

• To provide students with an opportunity to review their progress, identify areas of challenge and enable the sharing of ideas for solutions and strategies.
• To support students in developing their methodologies and clarifying their action plans for their thesis research.
• To facilitate connections between students to foster and encourage networking and peer support, both during the event and on an ongoing basis.

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Attitudes Symposium

Attitudes: Ontology, Methodology, Impact – A One Day Symposium

Tuesday 26th June 2012 – Humanities Bridgeford Street Building, University of Manchester

What are attitudes? How do we know about them? How should we measure them? How are attitudes used in research to explain and describe other phenomena? How is an understanding of attitudes useful for policy makers? These are some of the questions that we hope to cover in this one day symposium, hosted by the new Attitudes Research Group at the University of Manchester.

The attitude as an explanatory and descriptive concept has been with us for nearly a century and yet we still know relatively little about what attitudes really are. Originally a subject of psychological investigation they have taken on a research life of their own within quantitative social science. The use of the concept has now spread throughout the Humanities and this is reflected in the disciplinary breadth of the speakers at this symposium.

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Visualisation and Visual Data: Beyond the Quantitative Qualitative Divide

Friday 30th September 2011, 10am to 4pm – Postgraduate Statistics Centre, Lancaster University

Launch Event for Methods North West, research training element of the new North West Doctoral Training Centre. Co-sponsored by ESRC National Centre for Research Methods Lancaster-Warwick-Stirling Node.

Speakers include

• Dr Ruth Allen of Lancaster University – ‘Visualising learning space’
• Dr Les Humphreys of Lancaster University – ‘Using web-based material in visual sociology’
• Dr Julia Hallam of University of Liverpool – ‘Mapping the City in Film: A Geohistorical Analysis’
• Prof Chris Brunsdon of University of Liverpool – ‘Spatial statistical analysis and geographical information systems’
• Prof Martin Everett of University of Manchester – ‘Visualising Social Networks’
• Dr Andrew Irving of University of Manchester – ‘Visual Anthropology’

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