Understanding academic research is an important part of your degree. Firstly when you are reading research for your assignments it is useful to understand the different ways that research is carried out. As you progress throughout your studies you may be asked to conduct your own primary research. The resources on this page give a brief guide to interpreting qualitative and quantitative research and planning and carrying our your own studies.
This interactive course explains the difference between qualitative and quantitative research and introduces some of the main methods used in each approach.
This 10 minute video introduces your to qualitative and quantitative research and shows you how to critique a journal article.
In case study research you focus on one specific example (or case) and research it in depth. Case studies can use either qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods.
There are a wide range of qualitative methods that you could use when planning your own qualitative research project. This online course introduces you to a few of them.
This interactive guide to analysing qualitative data provides a brief introduction to thematic analysis.
For more detailed information we have a series of workshops throughout the year on research methods.
Quantitative research is any type of research with produces numerical data. This can be experiments, surveys or structured observations.
Quantitative research is analysed using statistical tests. It is important to choose a suitable test for the type of analysis you would like to do. The statistics resource page has more detailed guidance on each of these types of test. You may also want to look at this guide to using SPSS.
