Course overview
This course is designed to equip students with a broad overview of the suite of methods operationalised by social sciences disciplines, to (a) enable each student to compare their own disciplinary approaches with those of others, in order to know anew their own disciplinary specificity; (b) to enable students to articulate why some methods are better equipped to prosecute particular disciplinary questions, and to modify methods issuing from other disciplines to make them fit for specific disciplinary purpose; (c) to equip students to choose appropriate methods for the prosecution of their particular Honours project. The course is thus methodological in that it produces a knowledge of methods, which sits behind decisions the students take with their supervisor as to particular methods.
Course learning outcomes
- Identify and elaborate a valid thesis question and demonstrate its productivity to sustaining an Honours length thesis
- Demonstrate the capacity to craft an argument produced by the thesis question
- Anticipate, forecast or work towards the result of the prosecution of the thesis question and argument
- Demonstrate solid knowledge of the literature to which the thesis belongs, and a repuzzling of the literature to which the thesis responds
- Identify appropriate methods by which the thesis will be prosecuted
- Produce a polished research proposal that provides the spine for the Honours thesis