Ad­vanced Mixed Meth­ods

Course content

The purpose of Advanced Mixed Methods is to make students better consumers and producers of multi-method research. To that end, we will 1) discuss how fundamental building blocks of social scientific research can speak to and qualify one another 2) learn how to apply and combine various concrete methods such as case studies, content analysis, process tracing and relational quantitative methods such as social network analysis, correspondence analysis & sequence analysis and; 3) critically examine and learn from prominent examples of mixed methods in existing research.

Reflecting these learning priorities, the course aims to give students practical experience incorporating mixed methods into their own research design. We will discuss the uses of different types of data in making inference regarding a research question. The goal is to both give students new tools to work with and the ability to consume and assess their past and current application in political research. Each method will be introduced in a set of lectures; then students will get the chance to work with the methods themselves in smaller workshops. These workshops will serve as the foundation of a final research paper - in which mixing methods is a requirement - which functions as the exam assignment for the course.

In relation to Nordic Nine

Advanced Mixed Methods introduces students to a variety of methods, with the aim of teaching them to be analytical and data-driven in making inferences while retaining awareness of the limits, ambiguities, and complexities of such work (NN2). Not only does this make students better producers of knowledge, it also makes them better consumers of it, bolstering their ability to assess the challenges facing humanity and the pathways towards resolving them, incuding the trade-offs and ethical dilemmas this may involve (NN3; NN5; NN7). Pedagogically, the course centers around collaborative group work and mutual learning and teaching within these groups (NN6; NN8).