Qualitative Research Methods

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The quest for internal validity in the social sciences points researchers toward understanding causal processes within specific cases. Careful data collection and analysis within well-selected cases importantly boosts the confidence we can have in our conclusions and is at the centre of qualitative research methods This module aims to introduce students to the logic of inference, concepts, techniques, and data used within qualitative methods in political science. It covers themes like ontology, process tracing, small-N comparisons, and using archival, interview, and ethnographic data when assessing competing explanations in within-case analyses.