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Conceptualizing and Contextualizing Research

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Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Discipline Core SPG3EL601 2

Semester and Year Offered: 1st Semester, 1st Year

Course Coordinator and Team: N. Nakkeeran

Email of course coordinator: nakkeeran@aud.ac.in

Pre-requisites: None

Aim:

The course aims to provide students with an environment to reflect and creatively engage with and explore their research interests through a series of activities to arrive at their central research question / problem statement, situated within the current debates in the relevant field.

Objectives:

To facilitate students to consider ‘conceptualisation’ and contextualisation as distinct and explicit parts of their research and to offer them specific techniques and exercises to undertake conceptualisation and contextualisation of their research

Learning Outcome:

By the end of the course, through a series of write-ups, the participants will attempt to prepare

  • a note that spells out an area of interest, a delimited research problem, a set of central and secondary research question or research objectives
  • a note that contextualizes the research topic within disciplinary, epistemological, theoretical and methodological contexts

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

I. Introduction: Introduction to the course - Outline, scope, mode of transaction, caveats [diversity in social science research, all research need not follow the same sequence, exploratory research may follow a different trajectory etc.]

II. Understanding conceptualization: Participants will be given introductory chapter from a selected set of books to read.  These chapters usually discuses authors’ conceptualization of the work, its scope, key concepts, unpacking of these concepts, conceptual context of the research and methodological / disciplinary moorings.  Students will be asked to prepare a note of about 1500 words identifying these elements and critically appreciating these points.

III. Concept mapping: Concept mapping as a learning and conceptualization strategy will be discussed using some texts and case studies as the resource material. An illustration drawn from research literature will be discussed in detail. Following this, participants will be suggested to attempt creating conceptual map(s) for their research idea.

IV. Problem formulation: In this session a short presentation will be made on problem formulation, its meanings and stages followed by a discussion to invite participants’ ideas on this process, their differences and possible variations. Participants will be urged to put down their idea of research broken down into different elements/stages of problem formulation.  This will be followed by a closing discussion on the experience of preparing this note.

V. Clarification and operationalization: This session will start with a presentation that emphasizes the importance of this stage of conceptualization particularly in extensive studies that warrant a priori conceptualization and standardized procedures and its relevance even in exploratory study to give a boundary. In addition the presentation will emphasize the importance of spelling out the boundary of the proposed study and to clarify what the study is ‘not about’ and what it will not cover.

VI. Contextualizing the research: While a discussion on the diverse theoretical / epistemological perspectives is outside the scope of this course, through a short presentation this session will aim to emphasize the importance of contextualizing one’s research within specific disciplinary /epistemological / theoretical / conceptual contexts and the need to spell out key theoretical / epistemological / methodological perspectives that the study would subscribe to

VII. Site Selection: The selection of the field site at an early stage of the research helps in setting boundaries and limitations of the research. Alongside lectures, exercises related to scoping of field sites will be conducted in this unit.

VIII. Writing a Proposal: By discussing the structure and examples of different types of research proposals, the unit will focus on how to write a good dissertation research proposal. 

Assessment Details with weights:

S.No.

Assignment

 

1

Write up of about 500 words on your research intend

Any two will be  taken for final grade (30%)

2

Preparation of concept map of their research idea

3

A two to three page note on problem formulation

4

A short not capturing all the concepts, terms and procedures central to your research with operational definitions or clarifications

5

A note of about 1000 words situating your study within the broad disciplinary /epistemological / theoretical / conceptual  debates / contexts, enlisting key theories / texts / concepts / approaches/ perspectives this study would draw from and the manner / slant in which those borrowings will be dovetail with this specific study

Compulsory (30%)

6

A final summative assessment

Compulsory (40%)

 

Selected Readings:

  • Booth, WC., Colomb, GG., and Wiliams JM., The Craft of Research, (Section II  Asking Questions and Findings Answers) The University of Chicago Press, Chicago. 2003
  • Croty, M., Foundations of Social Research: Meaning and Perspective in the Research Process, “Introduction: The Research Process” (Chapter 1), Allen & Unwin, 1998.
  • Mills, CW., (1959) “On Intellectual Craftsmanship”, Appendix to the Sociological Imagination, Oxford University Press,
  • Said. E., Orientalism (Introduction)
  • Fontanari, E., Lives in transit: ethnographic study of refugees’ subjectivity
  • Weber, M., Protestant ethics (Introduction)
  • Phadke, S.,Why Loiter? (Prologue)
  • Ruiz-Primo MS., Shavelson. RJ., (1996) “Problems and Issues in the Use of Concept Maps in Science Assessment”, Journal of Research in Science Teaching 33(6): 569-600
  • Van der Waldt, G., 2020, ‘Constructing conceptual frameworks in social science research’, The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa 16(1), a758. https://doi.org/10.4102/ td.v16i1.758
  • Agee, J., (2009) Developing qualitative research questions: a reflective process, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 22:4, 431-447, DOI: 10.1080/09518390902736512
  • Geddes, B., (2003) “Big Questions and Little Answers” (Chapter 2) in Paradigms and Sand Castles, The University of Michigan Press,
  • Flcik, U., (2009) Qualitative Researching (Chapter 2: How to design a qualitative research: an overview), Sage, London.
  • Mason, J., (2002) Qualitative Researching, Designing Qualitative Research, (Chapter 2), Sage, London.
  • Carter, S.M. and Little M. (2007). Justifying Knowledge, Justifying Method, Taking Action: Epistemologies, Methodologies, and Methods in Qualitative Research. Qualitative Health Research, 17(10):1316-1328. doi:10.1177/1049732307306927
  • Collins, CS., and Stockton, CM., (2018) “The Central Role of Theory in Qualitative Research”, International Journal of Qualitative Methods Volume 17: 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406918797475
  • De Vaus, D. A. (2001) Research Design in Social Research. London: SAGE.
  • Gorard, S. (2013). Research Design: Creating Robust Approaches for the Social Sciences.Sage.
  • Kohler, R.E. and J. Vetter (2016). ‘The Field’ in B. Lightman (Ed.), A Companion to the History of Science. Wiley Blackwell.
  • Small, M. L. (2009). `How many cases do I need?’: On science and the logic of case selection in field-based research. Ethnography, 10(1), 5–38. https://doi.org/10.1177/1466138108099586
  • Pajares, F., “The Elements of a Proposal” Emory University, https://motivation.uky.edu/files/2013/09/The-Elements-of-a-Proposal.pdf
  • Walliman, N. (2011). Your Research Project: Designing and Planning Your Work. 3rd edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
  • Watts, M. (2001). ‘The holy grail: In pursuit of the dissertation proposal’, available at https://dusk.geo.orst.edu/prosem/PDFs/InPursuitofPhD.pdf.

 

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