Graduate School

The ability to verbally present your work clearly and concisely is a crucial skill for a researcher to develop. Presenting at seminars and conferences facilitates reflection on constructive feedback. It also enhances your academic profile and helps you to prepare for the final viva examination (where you will need to orally defend your thesis). During this session, part of our new series of research skills training sessions, we will discuss various presentation contexts, approaches and techniques for both preparation and delivery. There will also be an opportunity to practice, observe and provide feedback. Note: students will be expected to prepare a short five-minute presentation in advance of the session.This session is aimed at external postgraduates who are applying for, or are currently enrolled on, a PhD programme.

This is an online course for postgraduate researchers in which you will be invited to critically discuss a mixed methods approach to research. The course includes a strong conceptual and theoretical component and is also participatory in nature, with multiple resources that you can interact with either independently and/or collaboratively. You will be expected to analyse the key advantages and challenges of mixed methods research. This will be achieved in two ways: i. by critically discussing a series of ‘real-life’ examples of mixed methods research 'in action' from different social science departments around the University of Oxford and ii. by sharing, explaining and discussing the methodological challenges within your own research proposal.The final online session will provide an opportunity to present and discuss your developing research proposals with others. With this in mind it is expected that you should be in the process of, or beginning to, plan a research project prior to starting this course. For other expected criteria for acceptance onto this course, please see the level and demands section below.Please note that applications are no longer being accepted for this course.

This session, part of our new series of research skills training sessions, will introduce you to the interview as a method to collect data. We will also explore and examine how each interview can involve very different participants (e.g. elite and migrants) and contexts (e.g. social and environmental circumstances).You will also consider the structure of a one-to-one interview schedule, with the aim to collectively explore the importance of piloting interview questions. With all of this in mind this session will also introduce some of the ethical dimensions that different researchers will need to consider when using this data collection technique.This session is aimed at external postgraduates who are applying for, or are currently enrolled on, a PhD programme.

This short course is for postgraduate students wishing to gain an understanding of the theoretical, practical and ethical practices an empirical researcher adopts when interviewing participants. It will also assist in helping students explore the practicalities of relating different methods of interviewing to their own research philosophies. In summary, it will enable early career researchers to critically review their own perspectives of interviewing, anticipate potential ethical issues and consider philosophical conundrums that may arise.Beginning in week 1 the students will be introduced to interviews as an empirical method of data collection, through an introductory theoretical, ethical and practical lens. Subsequent weekly sessions (weeks 2-7) will continue to focus on the minutiae of what is involved in data gathering, transcribing, analysing and dissemination of findings. Each of the seven sessions will be underpinned through various contextualised situations (e.g. interviewing migrants, elites and adult careers). In week 8 the students will reflect on ‘what they have learnt’ and ‘how this had/or will inform their practices’ through a 15-minute presentation. For one month, after completing the course, the lead tutor will offer a number of one-to-one tutorials for those who are collating a cumulative reflective portfolio of work.To support the development of these individualised developing research skills, there will be a variety of interactive activities (both synchronous and asynchronous) throughout the eight weeks.

The ability to write a clear and effective research abstract is important in numerous academic contexts including proposing conference papers, applying for research grants, summarizing articles and book chapters and preparing your DPhil thesis. This session, part of our new series of research skills training sessions, will consider what makes a good abstract and how to go about writing one. Practical examples will be considered and there will be opportunities to write and share your own abstracts.This session is aimed at external postgraduates who are applying for, or are currently enrolled on, a PhD programme.

Explore issues and methods involved in conducting qualitative and/or ethnographic research in the social sciences related to the digital. This includes data gathering and analysis using “digital tools” such as mobile phones, GPS technology and software programmes  which supplement conventional ethnographic and qualitative research methods.   You will also look at new approaches, strategies and techniques for conducting research which engage directly with online and digital environments, including social media platforms, blogs and discussions forums and fully immersive digital realms such as video games and virtual worlds. Understanding how to use these methods opens up novel areas for research and access to new forms of data and communities. In light of the ongoing intensification of social interaction and association which occurs online and, in the wake of a global pandemic which has severely curtailed possibilities for conducting research in direct contact with others, the course explores both possibilities and opportunities for research of the digital and via the digital. For example, through the adaptation of research projects originally designed to be conducted ‘offline’ for remote, digital and ‘online’ methods and means. Participants will be asked to design and undertake a small-scale project based on the topics covered in this module, to be presented for discussion in the final class meeting.