Psychological Research Methods II

Participation Prerequisites

No formal prerequisites for participation. Active participation and preparation of required readings are expected.

Course Content

Whether you pursue careers in academia, corporations, or start‑ups, you will regularly face messy social situations that resist simple metrics. This course introduces qualitative research as a rigorous, creative toolkit for understanding such settings. We focus on generating insightful questions and defensible answers about organizational life, emphasizing the distinctive logics of ethnographic observation and in-depth interviewing.

We begin by situating qualitative research in relation to deductive and inductive approaches, and by clarifying when qualitative methods are most useful. Students then learn to design and conduct observations (planning, field access, writing field notes) and to craft interview studies (sampling, interview‑guide construction, conducting conversations, and managing desirability bias). Throughout, we emphasize the tight coupling of research design, data generation, and analysis.

The final part of the course explicitly addresses sampling, generalization, and quality criteria in qualitative research, including how to reason from cases, make warranted claims, and evaluate the credibility and contribution of qualitative studies.

Intended Learning Outcomes and Competencies

Upon successful completion, students will be able to:

• Distinguish abductive, inductive, and deductive logics and explain when qualitative methods are suitable.
• Design and conduct ethnographic observations and in‑depth interviews
• Communicate research processes and findings succinctly in speech and writing.
• Develop independent learning habits and professional discussion skills.

Instruction Type

Presence

Form of Examination

Literature

A reading list will be made available via Moodle