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2018/2019  BA-BDMAO3021U  Research Methods

English Title
Research Methods

Course information
Language English
Course ECTS 15 ECTS
Type Mandatory
Level Bachelor
Duration Three Semesters
Start time of the course Summer
Timetable Course schedule will be posted at calendar.cbs.dk
Study board
BSc in Digital Management
Course coordinator
  • Dorte Madsen - Department of Management, Society and Communication (MSC)
Main academic disciplines
  • Information technology
  • Methodology and philosophy of science
  • Sociology
Teaching methods
  • Face-to-face teaching
Last updated on 29-06-2018

Relevant links
Learning objectives
demonstrate overview of basic methodological challenges in the field of digital transformations - between interpretive methodologies and automated forms of knowledge production
  • apply the relevant philosophical approach(es) to a specific research question
  • explain/discuss the interplay of different paradigms and critically reflect on the relation between methodological choices and their research question.
  • communicate their insights in consistent and transparent writing.
Prerequisites for registering for the exam (activities during the teaching period)
Number of compulsory activities which must be approved: 3
Compulsory home assignments
Workshop II, III and IV
Examination
Research Methods:
Exam ECTS 15
Examination form Home assignment - written product
Individual or group exam Group exam
Please note the rules in the Programme Regulations about identification of individual contributions.
Number of people in the group 4
Size of written product Max. 5 pages
Assignment type Written assignment
Duration Written product to be submitted on specified date and time.
Grading scale 7-step scale
Examiner(s) One internal examiner
Exam period Summer
Make-up exam/re-exam
Same examination form as the ordinary exam
Course content and structure

The course provides an introduction to basic questions of methodology in social science research and how they are related to epistemological issues in the philosophy of science. Methodological challenges in the field of digital transformations typically relate to algorithms, data analysis, and social analysis and interpretation.

This understanding will be used to critically discuss and evaluate common approaches and methodologies in the programme's three main areas of study: business administration, digital technologies and data, and sociological and organisational perspectives.

The aim of the course is thus to enable students (a) to critically assess the methodological perspectives of knowledge, concepts and theoretical understandings they acquire from the other courses in the programme, including how disciplines and their methods are or may be tied with different paradigms, and (b) to critically reflect on their own ways of generating, analysing and interpreting data and producing knowledge. This, in turn, helps to develop students’ skills and analytical competencies in making sound, informed, and reasoned methodological choices in their own analytical work.

 

 

Themes of the course include: Digital methods, big data analysis and embedded assumptions; how tools and devices participate in shaping the world with us as we use them.

Basic positions in the philosophy of social science, science and technology studies and philosophy of technology; awareness of methodological problems and considerations, validity, epistemologies, and interdisciplinarity.

Introduction to research design and the rhetoric of a project paper, formulation of research questions, interplays between research questions, methods, theories, empirical data and analysis.

 
Description of the teaching methods
The course sessions are organized across several semesters and facilitated as a series of lectures combined with 4 workshop sessions where student groups will prepare feedback to each other's (mandatory) assignments (Peer feedback with Peergrade). Further, questions of methodology will be discussed in relevant courses and projects (2nd and 3rd years).

Workshops - themes:

Workshop I - Digital Methods
From digital methods to digital analytics: scraping and interface methods, including APIs.
4 hours. assignment (not mandatory).

Workshop II - Accessibility to data and ethical considerations
How to deal with the ethics of online data collection and analysis.
The value and ethics of studing digital traces including repurposing. Limits of a data set, and the limits of which questions can be asked of a data set and what interpretations are appropriate.
4 hours. Mandatory assignment

Workshop III - Do numbers speak for themselves?
On methods of knowing, algorithmic authority, "truth" and interpretation. Unmediated vs. mediated access to reality.
4 hours. Mandatory assignment

Workshop IV
Methodological challenges in the field of digital transformations.
The aim of this workshop is to discuss and reflect on the need for a heterogeneous understanding of the digital and insights from a variety of disciplines. How may digital devices reconfigure relations between social science, computing, and society and which interdisciplinary methods, insights and skills are the most important?
4 hours. Mandatory assignment.
Feedback during the teaching period
In the workshop session student groups will prepare feedback to each other's (mandatory) assignments (Peer feedback with Peergrade).
Student workload
lesctures 48 hours
Exercise 40 hours
Expected literature

tba
Last updated on 29-06-2018