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King's College London

Research Methods: A Practical Guide to Peer and Community Research

King's College London via FutureLearn

Overview

Learn how to conduct research to initiate positive social change.

This practical, ten-week course from King’s College London provides an overview of all aspects of research, with the principle aim to support and empower people to conduct their own research to initiate positive social change.

Using an extensive range of research steps, practical exercises and links to a multitude of comprehensive resources, you’ll develop your own ethical research project, with the overall aim being to share your findings with those that really matter.

Plan, conduct, and disseminate good quality ethical research

You’ll cover the concepts of diversity and inclusion, as will see how to tie these in to research methods such as critical perspectives - or when research critically analyses empirical data without being emancipatory in nature.

You’ll then cover the subject of research ethics, the moral principles and actions guiding and shaping research from start to end.

Identify and choose research methods to address your question

You’ll then identify specific research questions in order to address your question, and will get an introduction on how to evaluate and analyse qualitative, survey or routinely-available data results.

You’ll then get to grips with how to look after yourself as a researcher, and will identify how best to share your findings via campaigning, presenting and publications.

Learn from research methods experts at King’s College London

You’ll be learning from research methods experts at King’s College London, and will also be getting advice from leading academics at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. The course itself will also be getting feedback from Black Thrive and Thrive LDN; two organisations striving to tackle mental health issues.

This course is targeted at people interested in becoming peer researchers, community researchers, service user or survivor researchers in fields such as psychology or social science.

It will also be useful to all researchers looking to use quantitative methods, presenting a step-by-step, structured and practical approach.

Syllabus

  • Introduction to Community Research
    • Welcome to the course and Week 1
    • Defining communities
    • Summary of community research
  • Equity, diversity & inclusion
    • Understanding key terms
    • Critical perspectives in research
    • Learning to think of equity, diversity, and inclusion in research
    • Summary of considering equity, diversity, and inclusion
  • Ethics
    • Introduction to research ethics
    • Informed consent
    • Applying ethics in community based research
    • Summary of ethics in research
  • Identifying research questions and methods
    • Research topics and questions
    • Choosing the right research method
    • Summary of research questions/ methods
  • Community research methods - Part 1
    • Understanding interviews
    • Conducting a good interview
    • Understanding focus groups
    • Summary of interviews and focus groups
  • Community research methods - Part 2
    • Understanding ethnography and participant observation
    • Participant observation
    • Photovoice
    • Community mapping
    • Summary of ethnography and alternative qual methods
  • Community research methods - Part 3
    • Understanding surveys
    • Doing surveys
    • Overview of all research methods
    • Summary of surveys and other research methods
  • Data analysis
    • Qualitative data analysis
    • Quantitative data analysis
    • Summary of data analysis
  • Researcher support
    • Why protect yourself as a researcher
    • Accounting for safety
    • Summary of safety and peer researcher support
  • Sharing knowledge and course conclusion
    • Share your findings
    • Practical help on sharing findings
    • Summary of sharing knowledge
    • Course overview and conclusion

Taught by

Charlotte Woodhead

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