The teaching of research methods: fostering discursive pedagogic spaces in capacity building

Abstract

How do social science researchers learn about social research methods - the skills - and the knowledge and understanding required for their tailored application to research problems? How do teachers/trainers of research methods develop and use their methodological and pedagogical knowledge for developing the methodological learning of others? These are the fundamental questions underpinning current research funded by the National Centre for Research Methods in the UK and informing this paper. The UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) has been concerned enough about the UK’s social science research capacity and global competitiveness to make capacity building in methods the focus of major investment for the last decade. In the recent past social science doctoral researchers largely learned through apprenticeship/ supervision only; since then taught courses and formal training have increasingly become a requirement for doctoral students. The emergence of ESRC Doctoral Training Centres is a landmark in this shift in focus, discussed by Boud and Lee (2008), from the thesis and independent research as the sole focus of the doctoral education process to a the incorporation of core and advanced training tailored toward professional development of the capacity of the researcher. On a European level, the Salzburg Principles also appear to have fostered the adoption of more structured forms of doctoral training, under a conception of doctoral learners as ‘early stage researchers’ undergoing preparation for the job market, as advocated by the European University Association’s (EUA) Council for Doctoral Education (Kottmann 2011). The policy climate in Europe and the UK therefore appears to reflect similar concerns about research training and capacity building in response to the challenges of the global knowledge economy.

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ORCID for Melanie Nind: orcid.org/0000-0003-4070-7513

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