British Journal of Educational Studies

ISSN: 0007-1005 (Print) 1467-8527 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rbje20

Teaching Research Methods in the Social Sciences:

Expert Perspectives on Pedagogy and Practice

Sarah Lewthwaite & Melanie Nind

To cite this article: Sarah Lewthwaite & Melanie Nind (2016): Teaching Research Methods
in the Social Sciences: Expert Perspectives on Pedagogy and Practice, British Journal of
Educational Studies, DOI: 10.1080/00071005.2016.1197882

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 British Journal of Educational Studies
2016, pp. 1–18

TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL

SCIENCES: EXPERT PERSPECTIVES ON PEDAGOGY
AND PRACTICE
by S ARAH L EWTHWAITE and M ELANIE N IND , University of Southampton,
Southampton

ABSTRACT: Capacity building in social science research methods is

positioned by research councils as crucial to global competitiveness.
The pedagogies involved, however, remain under-researched and the
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pedagogical culture under-developed. This paper builds upon recent

thematic reviews of the literature to report new research that shifts the
focus from individual experiences of research methods teaching to empiri-
cal evidence from a study crossing research methods, disciplines and
nations. A dialogic, expert panel method was used, engaging interna-
tional experts to examine teaching and learning practices in advanced
social research methods. Experts, perspectives demonstrated strong the-
matic commonalities across quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods
domains in terms of pedagogy, by connecting learners to research, giving
direct and immersive experiences of research practice and promoting
reflexivity. This paper argues that through analysis of expert responses
to the distinct pedagogic challenges of the methods classroom, the prin-
ciples and illustrative examples generated can form the knowledge and
understanding required to enhance pedagogic culture and practice.
Keywords: research methods, teaching, learning, pedagogic culture, expert
panel method

1. I NTRODUCTION
The teaching of research methods places very specific demands on teachers and
learners. The capacity to undertake and engage with research ‘requires a combination
of theoretical understanding, procedural knowledge and mastery of a range of practical
skills’ (Kilburn et al., 2014, p. 191). These pose significant challenges to both methods
teachers and learners. For learners, Howard and Brady (2015) argue that methods
modules are among the most intellectually demanding courses in university education
(see also, Earley, 2014; Wagner et al., 2011). Methods teachers and instructors face
additional challenges as methodological expertise is often fragmented across academic
disciplines. Nationally and internationally there are no agreed curricula; methods
content is dynamic. Working in this fast-changing environment requires constant

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© 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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 2 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
vigilance and skills development on the part of learners and teachers. Within this
challenging context, efforts to accelerate the development of methodological expertise
have not always been informed by pedagogic research, principles and theories.
Reviews of the literature suggest a disjointed and under-developed discourse
around the pedagogy of methodological learning. A systematic review by
Wagner et al., (2011) identified a lack of ‘pedagogic culture’ in research methods
teaching, concluding that there is little guidance available to teachers. The
authors define this deficit as a lack of debate, cross-citation within the literature,
dialogue across disciplinary contexts, and substantial empirical research. Earley’s
(2014) review also notes a paucity of pedagogical research and pedagogic culture
across disciplinary boundaries. He observes that teachers of methods cannot
inform their practice by calling upon a substantial body of literature characterised
by systematic debate, investigation and evaluation of teaching and learning.
Instead, there is a reliance on peers, trial-and-error and methodological know-
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how, rather than pedagogic knowledge informed by theory or research (Earley,

2014). Given that the ability to undertake and evaluate research are foundational
within the social sciences (Ryan et al., 2014), this pedagogic situation is
troubling.

2. F ROM T HEMATIC AND S YSTEMATIC R EVIEW TO E MPIRICAL R ESEARCH

Published in this journal, a thematic review of papers from 2007 onwards
suggests that pedagogic dialogue is beginning to emerge, particularly in the
form of pedagogies for active, experiential and reflective forms of learning in
research methods (Kilburn et al., 2014). Indications of this dialogue include
edited collections (Garner et al., 2009) and research on teaching quantitative
(Payne and Williams, 2011), qualitative (Hurworth, 2008) and discipline-specific
methods (Adriaensen et al., 2015; Loxley et al., 2013) that go beyond reflections
on the authors’ own practice. Nonetheless, these activities may be more indica-
tive of pockets of interest, rather than a major building of pedagogic culture.
Indeed, recent debate around the teaching of quantitative methods exposes
the lack of connection between the teaching and educational research and theory.
In the USA, Gelman and Loken (2015, p. 1) argue that attitudes in statistics
education are more informed by ‘views about statistics, and personal experiences
in the classroom, than from systematic studies of what works in what context’.
This is echoed in the UK, where MacInnes (2012) and Scott Jones and Goldring
(2015) observe the neglect of quantitative methods and problems with under-
standing how they might be taught in the social sciences. Within the mixed
methods classroom, the need for pedagogic culture has spurred deliberate moves
to develop the field. Here the challenges include a ‘first generation of faculty’ in
which teachers themselves are learning the ‘how-to’s of conducting mixed
methods research, as they simultaneously teach these methods to their students
(Creswell et al., 2003, p. 620). Mixed methods courses are new (Frels et al.,
2012) and Hesse-Biber (2015) argues that instructors continue to be largely self-
 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 3
taught and are themselves lacking in adequate training in both quantitative and
qualitative methods. Taken together, she argues, these training gaps can under-
mine students’ understanding of using mixed methods and teachers’ confidence
in addressing student needs.
Despite the growing corpus of research in methods pedagogy, this literature is
marginal when compared with discussions of social science methodology (Nind
et al., 2015a). Moreover, as Nind et al., (2015a) argue, to date, work that is
published tends to comprise narratives of specific pedagogic examples, based on
the experience of a single teaching team with one or two cohorts of students. The
trend they observed, of reflection, both as a key pedagogic theme and the dominant
research method (e.g. Hernández-Hernández and Sancho-Gil, 2015; Scott Jones
and Goldring, 2015), continues in other recent literature (e.g. Dyrhauge, 2014;
Silver and Rivers, 2015). The insights gained from such research are valuable,
contributing to pedagogical culture by providing detailed examples of the ways in
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which teachers can engage with, and motivate, learners through changes to
pedagogic practice. However, there remains a need for research that expands the
frame of reference to cross-cutting research that encourages the dialogic practices
through which teaching praxis can be more empirically and systematically exam-
ined and debated. This is the gap that we are working to fill.
In this paper we develop the emerging pedagogy for research methods
identified by Kilburn et al. (2014) by connecting new research to the pedagogic
approaches they discuss. These are approaches that are grounded in reflection on
the research process, learning by doing research and the processes necessary to
make methods visible. To do this, we present and discuss a new evidence base
grounded in qualitative analysis of expert praxis in the teaching of social science
research methods, which constitutes a step towards the formation of a pedagogic
culture. Our aim is to further stimulate debate and dialogue, and to advance
understanding in this nascent, but growing field.

3. M ETHODOLOGICAL A PPROACH
To build on the emerging pedagogic culture surrounding methods learning, we
have sought a dialogic method design that develops understanding of expert
pedagogic practice, moving from a level of individual reflection to a level of
communal engagement. Moreover, we have sought an approach that could
encourage and expand the dialogue that characterises and promotes the devel-
opment of pedagogic culture through and between participants and the wider
research methods community. In this way we have set out to engage with
teachers and learners of research methods, rather than to evaluate them.
We were not interested in developing what Stacey (2002) theorises as the
high agreement, high certainty territory of standards, guidance and monitoring of
so-called best practice. This alone might lead to prescriptions of pedagogic
practice which could undermine the development of pedagogic culture and
obscure the socio-cultural aspects of methods learners’ journeys (Nind et al.,
 4 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
2014). Similarly, we saw the unhelpfulness of Stacey’s low agreement, low
certainty territory for the teaching of research methods. We were concerned
with nurturing his middle space ‘zone of complexity’, which fosters exploration
and so provides a space where pedagogic culture can grow (Nind et al., 2014).
Stacey (2012, p. 210) argues, ‘the source of skilled behaviour is not tacit
knowledge locked in an individual’s head’, rather the source is interaction and
ongoing participation in patterns of relating. Thus, in Stacey’s terms, we devised
a study to widen and deepen the conversation, as opposed to closing it down by
rushing to a solution or to a consensus. Working with the guiding principle of
dialogue, we initiated an ‘expert panel method’ adapted from the work of
Galliers and Huang (2012). Expert panel method involves a series of qualitative
interviews with individual experts who are then each invited to respond to an
analysis of the group’s data. As our work was concerned with dialogue and
sharing conceptual insights, our panel method differs from previous work. Our
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participants were invited to respond to initial findings as a group in a shared

forum, foregrounding opportunities for dialogue with and between methods
specialists.

Expertise in Method and Pedagogy

A key challenge in the development of excellence in the teaching of research
methods has been that the development of advanced methods training has
frequently been the task of methodological experts who do not have a pedagogic
background. In this sense, they demonstrate strong content knowledge (a knowl-
edge of method), but, as Nind et al. (2015b) observe, they do not necessarily
have the pedagogic knowledge (including that specific to the subject matter,
pedagogic content knowledge, (Shulman, 1986)) associated with excellent learn-
ing experiences. For the purposes of sharing pedagogic experience and insight, it
was therefore necessary to recruit participants with both teaching and methodo-
logical expertise who could share their pedagogical content knowledge. Within
higher education, expertise is notable for its social aspect, developed with and
judged by peers (Wray and Wallace, 2011). Such recognition of expertise by
peers must also exist side-by-side with the procedural knowledge, theoretical
expertise and practical skills accumulated through ongoing experience. As
‘expertise develops slowly and can be characterised by a large integrated knowl-
edge base’ (Shraw, 2006, p. 259), we recruited senior academics and scholars
with significant experience over time of advanced methods teaching at a post-
graduate level whose expertise was marked by peer-recommendation (through
the National Centre for Research Methods’ teaching networks and our expert
advisory group), the publication of ground-breaking and influential methods
textbooks and papers with a pedagogic function, and published reflections on
pedagogy for methods teaching. Many held leading positions within international
methods societies and as trans-national visiting academics. Thereby we created a
panel of people we characterise as methods experts and ‘pedagogic leaders’
 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 5
(Lucas and Claxton, 2013). We recognise that expertise in teaching practice is
not necessarily visible within these criteria. For example, the pedagogy of text-
books is often implicit, rather than explicit in its formulation and expression.
Moreover, we acknowledge that the notion of leadership is contentious, and that
our participants would not necessarily define themselves as experts or leaders.
Nonetheless, we hold that their academic teaching practices ‘set the cultural tone’
(Lucas and Claxton, 2013, p. 15) of much contemporary methods teaching and
learning.

Expert Panel Method

Expert panel method has previously been used to examine aspects of methods
teaching in Information Systems. Galliers and Huang (2012) sought alternative
narratives to dominant positivist paradigms and a quantitative methods culture.
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They note ‘expert panels provide a forum in which leading experts in a given
field are invited to share their experiences and thoughts’ (p. 122). We conducted
two expert panels; Panel 1 (2012–2013) involved experts from the UK and Panel
2 (2015) had an international focus. We undertook individual semi-structured
interviews with 8 UK expert methods teachers and 13 international experts (see
Table 1) working across Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. The status and
specialisms of many of the experts meant that retaining their anonymity before a
social science readership would be unfeasible. With advance ethical approval and
their explicit agreement, expert panellists are therefore referred to in this paper by
name.
Interviews were conducted by phone/Skype or in person, audio-recorded and
transcribed in full. The interview schedule was shared with participants for
consideration in advance. Questions covered pedagogical knowledge (e.g. prob-
ing the distinctiveness of methods teaching; the influences, learning theories and
approaches that experts associated with their practice), the culture of methods
and pedagogy (including socio-cultural factors, such as the influence of disci-
pline, method and geopolitics among others) and innovation in methods and in
teaching and learning (e.g. how experts respond to the challenges of new types of
data in the teaching of data analysis).
Experts were consulted on themes from the analysis of Panel 1 data, which
were then used in face-to-face focus groups comprising 15 teachers deeply
immersed in teaching particular methods (quantitative, qualitative, narrative) to
test out the resonance of identified pedagogic challenges, approaches and issues.
Some expert panel themes were simply endorsed, such as the challenge of the
diversity of learners in a group and the need to find out what they know and pitch
the teaching accordingly. Other themes were challenged, however, such as the
notion of short courses not providing sufficient space for reflection on practice (‘I
think you can do it on a short course actually’). Other themes (presented in the
focus groups through illustrative quotes) led to extensive consideration, some-
times problematising an issue (‘I don’t know how to read that comment actually,
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TABLE 1: Expert participants

Quantitative methods Mixed methods Qualitative methods

Panel 1 Panel 2 Panel 1 Panel 2 Panel 1 Panel 2

Andy Field Andrew Gelman, USA Julia Brannen Pat Bazeley, Australia Amanda Coffey Bagele Chilisa, Botswana
John MacInnes Anne Porter, Australia Pauline Leonard Manfred Max Bergman, Pat Sikes César Cisneros-Puebla,
Switzerland Mexico
Malcolm Williams W. Paul Vogt, USA John Creswell, USA Harry Torrance Yvonna Lincoln, USA
Chris Wild, New Sharlene Hesse-Biber, USA Johnny Saldaña, USA
Zealand
Richard Rogers, Netherlands1
1
Richard Rogers specialises in digital methods that blur the distinction between qualitative and quantitative.
TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 7
because . . .’), and to discussion of how different experiences mapped with those
of the panel. The method thereby generated data through interactive dialogue
across groups with pertinent expertise.
The second expert panel expanded the lens of interest from a national to an
international level. Methodological and pedagogical cultures vary widely inter-
nationally. To give nuance and to avoid an Anglo-centric orientation, we purpo-
sefully targeted different regions and experts with international experience. Once
again, the expert panel was invited to respond to and discuss emergent themes to
inform subsequent in-depth analysis, this time via a password-protected online
forum over a 4-week timeframe. This approach promoted the dialogue and
debate that characterises pedagogic culture, but also deepened our understanding
of the emergent data and offered experts reciprocal insight into the pedagogic
expertise of their peers.
Analysis of the data set was thematic, with data coded independently by two
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researchers. Coding in the first instance was based on immersion in the data
(listening to complete interview recordings as well as working with transcripts).
Following an initial analysis, emergent themes were shared with panel partici-
pants. Participant validation helped us to establish the credibility of our themes
(Lincoln and Guba, 1985) and online panel discussions generated further data
(Bloor, 1983), suggesting useful lines for more in-depth analysis. In the second
deeper wave of analysis, we inductively and iteratively pursued lines of inquiry
critical to the study and our participants. This influenced the choice of broad-
level themes (e.g. pedagogic challenge, pedagogic approach, innovation in
pedagogy); themes within these emerged in a more grounded fashion (e.g.
unprepared learners, project-based, risk-taking) and were labelled using expert’s
own terminology. We were interested not just in recurrent themes, but in the
importance these held for individuals, and responses to them in dialogue.

4. F INDINGS
In this study, we have begun examining the pedagogy of methods learning at a
community level, rather than the individual level that currently characterises the
literature. Individual findings have been exposed to an iterative sharing process
through the expert forum and focus groups thereby exploring which themes
resonate beyond individual contexts. Three prominent meta-themes identified
within the data are discussed here. These map closely to the themes established
by Kilburn et al. (2014) relating firstly to the importance of making research
visible – connecting learners to a world of methods through active engagement
with methods; secondly to perspectives and approaches concerned with learning
through the experience of conducting research; and finally to approaches that
encourage reflection on research practice. These themes are interrelated – impor-
tantly, we note that a given learning activity may express multiple complemen-
tary pedagogic aims. We also report themes relating to the origins of experts’
pedagogic approaches and pedagogies, where we begin.
 8 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
Pedagogical Roots
Through our analysis and expert dialogue, strong commonalities emerged regard-
ing the roots of pedagogic practice. Experts talked about, and reflected jointly
upon, how their pedagogical approaches have evolved. Substantive discipline
was a key theme. Johnny Saldaña expressed the importance of his substantive
discipline (Theatre) as it informed every aspect of his methods teaching practice.
He described how transferring concepts such as ‘perceived similarity’ (‘meaning
that if the audience sees something in the characters on stage that they can
identify with . . . the audience is going to be more engaged’) underpinned his
teaching rationale when engaging with methods students. This substantive aspect
was echoed by Richard Rogers for whom ‘hacker methodologies’ and teaching
approaches from computer science were expressed in digital research methods
teaching through hackathons (in which programmers and others collaborate to
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develop new hardware or software) and intensive project-based courses con-

ceived as ‘data sprints’. Disciplines were also made visible in experts’ reflections
on their own training and how this influenced their pedagogy. They repeatedly
referred to their disciplinary foundations, whether or not they had moved from
the discipline in which they were trained: For Sharlene Hesse-Biber this was
expressed in the formative influence of the Institute of Social Research’s ‘Detroit
Area Study’ at the University of Michigan and for Bagele Chilisa it was critical
training at the University of Pittsburgh. Pat Bazeley referred to her pedagogical
roots and values within her psychology training, which fostered an appreciation
of ‘all substantive learning’ as being ‘based on evidence from research’.
The formative influence of prior methods training was also lucidly articulated
among the panel. Max Bergman reported having ‘emulated more or less good
teachers that I had and developed relatively quickly my own style’. Johnny
Saldaña concurred: ‘Like Max, I have been greatly influenced in my pedagogy
by outstanding teachers and I try to replicate their pedagogical style’. According
to Yvonna Lincoln, ‘we tend to teach what we were taught’ with ‘direct links’
between supervisors and students across generations of researcher-teachers. This
‘social reproduction’ of intellectual forebears, she argues, influences everything
from choice of textbooks to pedagogical style and substance. Andrew Gelman
spoke of this ‘tradition’ in statistics – adapting across platforms from the black-
board to computer codes. However, Lincoln stressed that in qualitative methods
this was not simply tradition, ‘there’s a very real sense of doing it [methods
teaching] in the same vein, if not in the same way. . . as you were taught to do it’.
Experts also reported the influence and value of mentors (Bazeley), teacher-
educator colleagues (Wild) and the learners themselves (Bergman, Creswell).
Moving from the micro to a macro level, pedagogic expertise was also rooted
deeply in national context in several key cases. For Cesar Cisneros-Puebla, this
was expressed as pedagogical inheritance of the 1970s inspired by Cuban
teachers connected to Vygotsky. In his words, ‘this legacy around participatory
action research, activity theory . . . it’s always in our connection to the students’.
 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 9
Bagele Chilisa, ‘coming from Africa’, wanted to ‘understand whether there is a
standpoint . . . that is informed by where we are in terms of development, and
where we are in terms of our histories . . . not only our histories but our
involvement in research’. These departures from Western-centric methods teach-
ing narratives are a reminder of the political and situated nature of methods
teaching inheritance.
The individual values and methods of the expert teacher/researcher were
assigned great importance in the discussion of pedagogical roots. Johnny
Saldaña observed ‘We teach who we are’ and Andy Field recognised that ‘one
person’s teaching style is not necessarily another person’s teaching style’, that we
each have our ‘individual stamp’. Amanda Coffey stressed the role of her deep
appreciation of qualitative methods in how she taught and communicated this.
We can see that the combination of disciplinary methods teaching, cultural
and individual histories influenced the evolution of the experts’ pedagogical
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practices, by their own accounts more so than any pedagogical theories. When
more theoretical influences were mentioned (such as Vygotskian and Freirian
influence in South American contexts), these were in the context of the above.
Exceptionally, and understandably so, this was different only for those with a
background in education, such as Amanda Coffey, who made greater reference to
pedagogic concepts such as pedagogic spaces and peer learning.
From the foundations of pedagogy, we now turn to how experts articulated
their pedagogical approaches in practice with a view to the learning that can be
gleaned for the methods teaching community.

Theme 1: Making Research Visible: Connecting Learners to Research

Kilburn et al. (2014, p. 197) referred to a group of teaching approaches linked by
the goal of making the ‘research process visible by actively engaging students in
the aspects of the methods at hand’. We did not analyse our interview transcripts
with this categorisation in mind. However, our coding allowed us to map the
experts’ pedagogical content knowledge in this area. We interpreted this range of
pedagogic activity in terms of the pedagogic starting points or hooks that our
interviewees described as ways of connecting the learners to the research space.
Andy Field articulated the long-term nature of this project: ‘if you get people
engaged at undergraduate level you’ve potentially hooked them for life’.
Amanda Coffey referred to the ‘kind of pedagogical techniques or tricks in a
sense’ that do this, and Field to a core ‘scaffold’ that he uses to bridge entry to
statistical learning. For Bagele Chilisa, this activity was geo-political, relating to
the need for students in an African context to be able to critique government
research and international literatures. Use of pedagogic hooks might involve
connecting methods learners to research ideas, data or methods, but it is funda-
mental work, central to bringing learners in to the activity of researchers so that
they might see or know research in engaging ways.
 10 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
According to the literature and to our expert panel, to hook in – or connect –
learners and research methods might require active learning, ‘which gets students
actively involved’ (Keyser, 2000, p. 35) in solving problems and using methods.
Teachers working in a student-centred way to foster engagement might use tasks
and exercises, but also examples, metaphors or vignettes to make the research
method knowable to learners (Kilburn et al., 2014). Amanda Coffey referred to
‘very tangible’ tasks that ‘enable learners to critically engage’. She described
getting them working with data ‘right at the start’ and Malcolm Williams’
starting point might be for students to ‘get their teeth into’ data sets by activity
working on them. Going beyond doing things as a route in, there is also knowing
how researchers do things. Sharlene Hesse-Biber spoke specifically about taking
methods learners ‘behind the scenes’ of research, sharing the ‘back-story’ behind
the ‘final product’ as a way of making the research process visible and thereby
understanding ‘the enormous journey that researchers go on, the false starts, the
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stops, the need to regroup, the iterative nature’. Similarly, Malcom Williams
recounts the importance of ‘great stories’ from the field ‘that will illustrate
issues’, challenges, setbacks; this, he argues, is ‘the only way students are ever
going to get there . . . when they hear it from the people themselves’. Field,
Leonard and Sikes are also explicit about using stories in this way to engage
learners. Hence, pedagogic hooks in the process of making research visible are
about active engagement rather than just activity.
Pedagogic hooks are often the things that are non-threatening, non-technical,
even enjoyable. This might mean hands-on working with analytic software (as
described by Vogt, Wild, Williams) or engaging with interesting quantitative data
sets (advocated by MacInnes, Wild, Williams) or ethical questions (Sikes,
Torrance). Experienced methods teachers ‘start from where people are’, how
they use observing and listening as ‘methods of everyday life’ (Coffey). Such
teachers use the learners’ interests (Vogt, Wild, Williams) and own culture to
build bridges into the research space, for example, learners’ disciplinary culture
or literature familiar to them (Lincoln). Connecting learners to research in this
respect can be a matter of ‘appreciation’ of what might count as data or evidence
(Coffey). Yvonna Lincoln explained that this is about ‘help[ing] them to see that
[research] questions don’t exist in a vacuum’: they are located in research spaces
just as the methods learners are. For Sharlene Hesse-Biber, the hook or connec-
tion needs to be between the standpoint of the methods teacher as a researcher
and the standpoints of the learners. She described her teaching as starting from
reflecting on these standpoints, and also her pedagogic practice of ‘experience
sampling’ – frequently dipping into learners’ experiences to aid teaching. Paul
Vogt was most explicit about combining learner interest and learner activity as an
effective hook, arguing from his experience that ‘[n]othing works better than
hands-on work on something they’re interested in’. He explained, ‘once you
have gotten them hooked, then you can . . .’, indicating various activity that can
follow from this first stage. He elaborated on a range of non-technical ways of
hooking methods learners into quantitative research methods and the technical
 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 11
language and practices therein. Cross-cultural and inter-disciplinary teaching
practices complicate these activities – as experts (Bergman, Chilisa, Cisernos-
Puebla, Creswell, Gelman, Hesse-Biber, Lincoln, Vogt) identified how national
methods cultures and disciplinary legacies determine both the teaching context
and pre-existing methods knowledge among students that teachers must engage
or supplement to ensure parity in student learning outcomes. As John Creswell
observed ‘one of the key issues globally is whether the country has sufficient
training in both quantitative and qualitative research’. While he recognised the
difficulty in generalising, student-centred teaching does need to acknowledge the
predominance of particular schools of method in given cultural (and disciplinary)
contexts to effectively engage students and meet their needs.
We also identified, among a broad spectrum of teaching approaches
described, those that could be categorised as active or problem-based learning.
Such conceptualisation, therefore, has been applied not only in the descriptive,
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reflective and evaluative accounts of pockets of methods teaching to be found in

the literature, but in the accounts of very experienced teachers of methods
(quantitative, qualitative and mixed) across cultures and disciplines. Active
learning was often about hands-on working with data and software (Gellman,
Vogt, Wild), but also about ‘doing and reflecting’ (Leonard). It was about
opportunities to practice the process (Chilisa, Hesse-Biber), to make mistakes
and learn from them, learning to take responsibility (Hesse-Biber, Porter) and to
really know the methods within the disciplinary context (Bergman, Chilisa).
Problem-based learning could be about using a real-world research problem as
a starting point (Chilisa, Rogers), using worked examples and then working
through problems in statistics (Porter, Gellman), using software in a problem-
oriented way (Rogers) or exposing the diversity of approaches to solving a
research or statistical problem (Hesse-Biber, Porter). Max Berman reflected on
how he links a problem-based approach with scaffolding learning, describing
giving learners ‘a problem that I am dealing with, and then engaging with them
seriously about what they think could be the solution’. He refers to the ‘advanced
apprentice model’ incorporated in this, and Johnny Saldaña too refers to using
his research experiences incorporated into a kind of spiral curriculum for ‘scaf-
folding them [learners] into their research activities’. Once again, the process of
making research visible and connecting learners to it is exemplified.

Theme 2: Learning By Doing: Giving Learners First-Hand Experience of

Research Practice
We can see in the data that conceptually, ‘hands-on’ working was essential and
pre-eminant for many experts, in terms of student motivation and development of
skills and expertise and of ethical practice (Torrance, Vogt, Rogers), on the way
to deeper pedagogical moves. John MacInnes lamented the lack of learning by
doing in the social as opposed to natural sciences and Malcolm Williams valued
‘flying time’. Bagele Chilsa also referred directly to the need for ‘hands-on’
 12 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
training, linking it with student motivation ‘once we make it hands-on . . .
students will always like it, because it is fulfilling, in the sense that in the end
they always have a product of their own’. Going beyond the above, however
Kilburn et al. (2014, p. 199) refer to a second pedagogic approach visible in the
literature focussed on activities that give students ‘first-hand experience of
undertaking research in real-world contexts or using authentic empirical data’.
This was also a significant theme within the expert interviews, with experts
frequently referring to learning by doing (Brannen, Leonard, Torrance, Cisneros-
Puebla, Hesse-Biber), experiential learning (Hesse-Biber, Lincoln, Rogers,
Saldaña, Wild) and authentic problem-based learning (Williams) as named and
explicit pedagogic approaches. For all experts, learning with and through data
was fundamental to their teaching practice, across qualitative, quantitative and
mixed specialisms.
Within panel discussion, learning-by-doing or experiential learning was
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cited as key to teaching practice. Johnny Saldaña stated ‘I consider all my

methods classes a “research studio” where we are actively DOING things with
data, with analysis, and so on.’ He reflected on how he privileged and relied
upon a ‘hands-on’ approach to the teaching of research methods as his ‘most
important pedagogical root’. Sharlene Hesse-Biber described learning-by-
doing as ‘critical’. Yvonna Lincoln saw her approach as ‘very experiential’,
arguing that it was essential to get students into the field, ‘doing fieldwork
notes, doing the observation . . . doing interviews, doing thoughtful analysis of
interviews . . . doing this experimental writing . . . searching documents’. This
mirrors the literature, where Hammersley (2012) and others argue that certain
aspects of research practice cannot be taught in abstraction. Put simply: ‘you
can’t teach fieldwork methods as a theoretical course’ (Lincoln). Supporting
literature also highlights the tasks and work necessary to gain insight into
methods, for example, Aguado’s (2009, p. 256) focus on the ‘challenges of
operationalisation’ that might be encountered in real-world research projects.
Amanda Coffey summarises this position:

you cannot teach someone to become a qualitative research practitioner, actually to

be able to do it and do it well, without them actually practicing . . . I feel very
strongly that . . . we have to get them out into the field. We have to get them
generating data, and maybe get them critically working on data sets. We have to get
them doing preliminary analyses of data.

The stress on teaching experientially (Torrance, Hesse-Biber, Lincoln, Rogers,

Saldaña, Wild) resonated beyond qualitative into quantitative and mixed methods
areas. However, the insight of Lincoln and Coffey is especially useful as it draws
the level of focus from the procedural knowledge – and often skills-based
learning of ‘learning by doing’ and ‘hands-on’ working that is also visible in
the ‘active-learning’ and problem-based scenarios that we have previously dis-
cussed – into the more immersive and authentic landscape of experiential, real-
world research and the knowledge(s) this can evoke.
 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 13
‘Doing’ With Data
Across the interviews and focus groups, a common theme emerged on use of
data to facilitate learning, as a pedagogic hook and more. The necessity of
gathering/generating data, handling analysis and reporting data within empirical
research methods training meant data was a key issue for experts. They
recounted a variety of pedagogic approaches that focus on experiential, authen-
tic, real-world and immersive engagement with methods and ‘real’ data.
Examples include research projects with published outcomes (Rogers); those
that engage communities and research organisations (such as NGOs) (Chilsa)
and research using real data in the form of (for example) country-level data sets
detailing economic, health or environmental data (Wild). Within these, data were
used to several pedagogic ends.
Approaches characterised as learning by doing frequently gravitated around
data to learn through. John Creswell made the case for using student data
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powerfully: ‘the best way to actually grab the students’ attention is to have
them work on their own project’. He continued:

It’s a very student-orientated approach, and it’s not where I am the all-wisdom
dispenser of knowledge, but I am the shaper, I help sculpt, if you will, a way for the
students framing [of] things, to improve them, to strengthen them. . .. working from
their ideas; it’s a magnificent teaching strategy, I think.

Experts’ use of data also enacted other pedagogic functions. For Johnny Saldaña,
data could be experienced and embodied, deepening learner’s engagement in the
analysis process:

I get my students to read [aloud] the data. . . . With talking the data you get to
embody it right, you take cognitive ownership of it. We use personal data and
narratives for analytic exercises.

The use of student-generated data was frequently identified as ideal in grounding

learning, but also problematised in the discussions (MacInnes, Creswell).
Problems with using the students’ own data were elaborated on by the focus
group of qualitative methods teachers who had experienced trying to manage
working with poor or incomplete data, data that failed to interest others in the
group and so on. Using the teacher’s own data could bring parallel authenticity
but reduce problems: ‘because you can choose the data and you can choose what
kinds of challenges and messages there are in that’.

Theme 3: Reflection: Understanding the Different Ways in Which Research

Problems can be Engaged With
Much is written about reflective and reflexive practice in the teaching and
learning of research methods, whereby the element of judgement or reasoned
decision-making necessitates embedding reflection in the process of being
 14 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
competent (Kilburn et al., 2014). Experts elaborated on this theme from their
experiences, identifying the ways in which they facilitated learning in which
learners reflect upon their own understanding of research. We found experts use
reflection on methods as a key way to promote a deeper knowledge of method
expertise in learners. However, the modes of reflection, and the pedagogy
deployed vary, dependent on a number of variables (linked to pedagogic
challenge).
Reflexive language and pedagogic approaches were frequently embedded in
expert teaching practices. These were articulated as attention to critical stand-
points (Hesse-Biber), critical engagement in peer groups (Coffey), promoting the
evaluation and adoption of multiple perspectives (Coffey, Creswell), engaging
understandings of paradigms and critique (Chilisa), reflexivity (Coffey, Leonard,
Sikes, Hesse-Biber, Chilisa, Lincoln, Vogt) and the reflexivity defined by Thien
(2009) which seeks to recognise the role of identity politics (Hesse-Biber,
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Chilisa, Lincoln) or embodied approaches (Saldaña). Notably, these terms can

be considered as overlapping themes, rather than discrete definitions, that allow
learners to situate themselves in different ways. Bagele Chilisa observes ‘para-
digms are actually methodological standpoints’. She places her emphasis on
‘making the students aware that whenever they do research, they are doing
research from a standpoint . . . to be clear about their standpoints.’ Moreover,
the tasks deployed to engage learners in reflexive practice also illustrate how
multiple pedagogic aims can be articulated in a single learning task (e.g. in terms
of the embodiment of methods, previously discussed by Saldaña, or in peer-
evaluation, by Porter). As a whole, reflexivity in these cases was characterised as
an ability to locate and situate oneself, and ones’ methods decisions within a
wider methods landscape. Kilburn et al. (2014) find these approaches to be
largely qualitative. We found that approaches that promoted reflection were
deployed strongly in qualitative and mixed methods, but also in a significant
strand of quantitative teaching (Porter, Vogt, Wild).
An additional essential aspect of reflexivity in advanced methods exposes the
realities of research in a given context. For Max Bergman this was critical: ‘. . .
part of the training that I do . . . is to teach them first of all you have to realise
how political research methods actually are and secondly learn the rules of the
game within your field.’ This knowledge was essential to the articulation of
methods in emergent methods cultures where new forms of research can be
fraught with difficulty. Sharlene Hesse-Biber also actively sought to expose the
‘back-story’ of the research process and its iterative nature using ‘behind-the-
scenes’ cases to deconstruction notions of perfect and sequential research
activities.
Within reflexive (and particularly cross-cultural) practices, the necessity of
orientating teaching to the learner’s particular context(s) in terms of their exper-
tise, discipline, background, nationality, standpoints and so forth was a recurrent
theme (Bergman, Creswell, Lincoln). In practice, experts reported additional
benefits from student-centred practices. Experienced (expert) learners can
 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES 15
constitute a resource for teachers. In a focus group, one methods teacher
described the benefits of teaching a group with scholars who ‘have an expertise
in one particular kind of field of qualitative research but are relative novices, say,
in narrative or another [method]’ and ‘the kind of doctoral students who have
extraordinary expertise’. Orientating to learners in this way frequently spurred
pedagogic development, suggesting that the reflexivity of teacher-as-learner
continues to be a strong tenant of expert practice.

5. D ISCUSSION
Our findings engage with recent systematic and thematic reviews to offer an
analytic lens on multiple teaching practices rather than a reflection from within
practice, as has previously characterised the literature. Our focus has been to
elucidate not only what experts do, but also the roots of pedagogical approaches
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and the import and value placed upon them within the methods classroom.
Deepening the conversation about methods pedagogy enriches our understand-
ing, thereby promoting pedagogic culture in advanced methods teaching.
Nonetheless, among our participants, there remained a strong sense that the
gap in pedagogic culture is still felt. Experts identified a need for forums to
debate, give visibility to teaching practices and draw in more significant peda-
gogic discussions from the disciplines (and education more specifically). Thus,
while we have sought to promote pedagogic debate, this research highlights the
substantial work still needed to adequately represent and connect developments
in the field.
Experts’ perspectives demonstrated strong thematic commonalities across
methods domains; at the same time, these perspectives were frequently highly
original and independent in their articulation. Pedagogy, in each case, is found to
centre on connecting learners to research, giving direct and immersive experi-
ences of research practice and promoting reflexivity. While these themes have
been scoped by Kilburn et al. (2014) in the literature, here we get a sense of the
importance placed upon these themes in practice. Expert practitioners place great
significance on particular pedagogic approaches, notably, active learning, learn-
ing by doing, working with and through data and the facilitation of multiple
methodological perspectives and reflexive standpoints. The teaching acts asso-
ciated with these approaches are enacted, reflected and theorised in highly unique
ways. In this paper, we have offered a thematic and conceptual frame for expert
insights. This has not been straightforward, as the pedagogic actions of both
teachers and learners may be understood to serve multiple purposes. Moreover,
we find that within expert talk, language, when probed, can blur the conceptual
terrain, as terms are used to gesture to different facets of similar practices. In this
respect, there remains significant scope for exploring the richness of expert and
practitioner standpoints across disciplines, locations and methods. We also find
that expertise within social science methods teaching largely continues to be
based on individual work over a lifetime of practice. However, by engaging
 16 TEACHING RESEARCH METHODS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
across disciplinary, national and methodological borders, we have sought to
establish a more granular understanding of the basis of this expertise, and a
clearer insight into the overarching challenges of methods teaching.

6. C ONCLUSION
In social science research methods, pedagogic culture is, as we and others have
argued, still nascent. This research has helped to elicit what experienced teachers
know about the pedagogy of methodological learning, to synthesise and com-
municate this, and thereby to stimulate pedagogic culture. In the interest of
pedagogic culture, we have fostered dialogue to expand the lens of focus from
individual accounts of ‘what works’ that are primarily located within individual
disciplines. We have crossed disciplines, national boundaries, and qualitative,
quantitative and mixed methods to engage significant actors and informants
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within research methods in productive discussion of methods pedagogy.

Through analysis of expert responses to the distinct pedagogic challenges of
the methods classroom, the principles and illustrative examples generated can
form the knowledge and understanding required to enhance practice and wider
pedagogic culture.

7. A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank our participants for their generosity in contributing to
our project. We would also like to thank Daniel Kilburn and Rose Wiles for
their substantial work in the first phase of this project.

8. D ISCLOSURE STATEMENT
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

9. FUNDING
This work was supported by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
[grant number ES/L008351/1].

ORCID
Sarah Lewthwaite http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4480-3705

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Correspondence
Sarah Lewthwaite
National Centre for Research Methods
University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
Email: [email protected]