TRiSS Social Science Methods Series
Throughout the academic year, TRiSS are hosting a series of two-hour intensive and interactive workshops introducing a particular social science method. The series is aimed at PhD and Postdoctoral researchers as well as academic staff. We invite suggestions and submissions for workshops from any of our member schools.
After a successful launch of the series in December 2017, Dr Charlotte Wilson, Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology, will kick off 2019 with the next workshop entitled:
Mixed Methods Approaches in Social Science Research
Workshop leader: Dr Charlotte Wilson, Assistant Professor in Clinical Psychology
Date: Wednesday, 6th February 2018, 1:00-3:00pm
Location: TRiSS Seminar Room, 6th Floor of the Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin.
This workshop will provide an introduction to mixed methods research with a focus on mixed methods approaches in social science research.
Mixed methods research combines quantitative with qualitative research methods within the same study. The main challenge of mixed methods research is to resolve difficulties with combining different epistemologies. However, there are a number of advantages to combining quantitative and qualitative research methods; in particular, this approach can make claims to generalizability that is a hallmark of quantitative research, with the richness and depth of qualitative research.
The workshop will include exercises on understanding your own predominant research epistemology, coherently combining different research methods in the same study, minimising risk in combining approaches and addressing issues of quality in mixed methods research. Throughout the workshop participants will be encouraged to apply their thinking and learning to their own research and to real life research ideas.
Light refreshments will be provided, so please register for this workshop on EventbritePrevious Workshops
Mixed Methods Approaches in Social Science Research
January 17th 2018, Dr Charlotte Wilson
Data Wrangling and Visualisation Using R
Workshop leader: Stefan Müller, PhD Candidate in Political Science
Date: Monday, 4th December 2017, 13:00-15:00
Location: TRiSS Seminar Room, 6th Floor of the Arts Building, Trinity College Dublin.
In most quantitative research, data analysis constitutes only the last part of a project. Prior to analysing data, often we need to reshape, merge, filter, recode, or rearrange our data. Moreover, reproducible data visualisation is an increasingly important and necessary tool for researchers in social science disciplines.
This workshop introduced the R packages dplyr for data wrangling and the powerful ggplot2 package for data visualisation. After a general introduction to the "tidy data" approach, participants were invited to apply the five most important functions for data transformation, and get the know "grammar of graphics" of the ggplot2 package.
The workshop, while designed for those who have used R in some form previously, expertise in R was not required, and participants without previous experience were welcome to get a taste for the approach.