The content of the course is based on a selection of qualitative research methods for data generation and analysis that are often used within the administrative and policy sciences. Students will be given the opportunity to critically appraise qualitative research studies from their own research fields both individually and in seminars. Through active participation in seminars, different ways of collecting/generating and analyzing qualitative data will be discussed and analysed. In addition, in the form of a written assignment, students will plan their own qualitative studies and describe how they would carry out an analysis. This course offers a hands-on opportunity for graduate students to experience the practice of qualitative research. The course will require a moderate investment of time, with academically necessary reading and writing, recurrent team discussions based on assignments, and individual fieldwork. Teaching is in English and in the form of a course introduction, lectures and seminars.

The purposes of this course are twofold: one is to provide students with opportunities to learn basic concepts and basic research process of a generalist (basically grounded theory approach) qualitative research method; the other is to provide students with hand-on exercises to develop mini qualitative research paper. It also provides students with opportunities using N-Vivo qualitative data software to analyze data. The end of this course, students are expected to understand about what qualitative research method is in general.

1. Hennink, M., Hutterm I. & Bailey, A. (2020). Qualitative Research Methods. (2nd.ed.). Sage Publications.
2. Creswell, J. (2007). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing from Five Approaches. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.