Intended audience: The course is aimed primarily at PhD candidates in the Faculty of Landscape and Society. The course is normally taken during the first year of study but may be taken later.

Course description: This is a course in research design, which is the meta-design of a research project. The course opens with an introduction to the PhD as a form of scholarly work. The central focus for this course is then the participant´s own research proposal. The aim of the course is to give participants a solid background for developing a research design for their PhD research. During the course, participants will rework and improve their research proposals. We will work with all parts of research design, with a significant emphasis on identification of research problems and questions, and the implications for research design. The contact part of the course is organised in two blocks during the autumn semester, five full days in total, plus an individual tutorial. The workshops will be used to discuss different aspects of research design. Experienced researchers from across the faculty will give presentations on how they have handled particular challenges in research design. PhD candidates who are further on with their research will also contribute. One part of the course will concern research ethics. The output of the course will be a revised PhD research proposal, accompanied by a reflective paper.

Participants will develop early competence in research design. They will understand the scientific requirements for a PhD, and be able to:

• critically assess the merits of alternative research designs
• identify and critically reflect on research design challenges of their own PhD study
• identify ethical challenges arising in research and adapt their research design accordingly
• improve their own PhD research design

The course reading is selected to cover different research designs that will be useful for the PhD candidates that attend the course. It will cover research strategies that fit well with different theory of science approaches, as well as different kinds of methodology.

Key text: Farthing, S. (2016) Research design in urban planning: a student`s guide. London: Sage.

Indicative reading:

Biggs, M. & Karlsson, H. (2011). The Routledge companion to research in the arts. London: Routledge.

Blakie, N. (2000) Designing social research. Cambridge: Polity Press.  

Creswell, J.W. (2009) Research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches. London: Sage. (chapter 6: The purpose statement).   

Deming, M.E. and Swaffield, S. (2011) Landscape architecture research: inquiry, strategy, design. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and sons. 

Edmonds, W.A., Kennedy, T.D. (2016) An Applied Guide to Research Designs: Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Methods. London: Sage.

Flyvbjerg, B. (2001) Making social science matter: why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  

Goodson, P. (2013) Becoming an academic writer: 50 exercises for paced, productive and powerful writing, London: Sage.

Maggetti, M., Gilardi, F. & Radaelli, C.M. (2013) Designing Research in the Social Sciences. Sage.  della Porta, D. and Keating, M. (eds.) (2008) Approaches and methodologies in the social sciences: a pluralist perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

O`Leary, Z. (2006) Researching Real-World Problems: A Guide to Methods of Inquiry. London: Sage.

Muratovksi, G. (2016) Research for designers: a guide to methods and practice. London: Sage. 

Reason, P. and Bradbury, H. (eds.) (2008)The Sage Handbook of Action Research: Participative Inquiry and Practice. London: Sage.

Participants must submit the current version of their PhD research proposal (preferably in English) at least one week before the course starts. The proposal should include an abstract. 

Preparatory reading: Participants should read all abstracts submitted to the course. They could also have made themselves familiar with the content of the reading list.

Participants will be allocated a fellow participant´s project descriptions to analyse before the first teaching block.

A combined assessment based on:

1. Active participation in the course sessions

2. A research project proposal submitted after the end of the course

3. A reflective report of up to 1000 words on how the candidate has improved their research design during the course

Submission deadline: 25 November 2022

Five full days of lectures, seminars, group work , plus an individual tutorial.

Indicative programme for workshop days

Theme 1: Introduction. Participants´ backgrounds, projects and goals for the PhD will be shared and discussed. Short presentations by students, exercises and inspiration.

Theme 2: Research questions. How do we develop good research questions (and related framing of scientific problems) and research aims?

Theme 3: Research designs by experienced researchers. Several researchers will come and talk about different aspects of research design, in relation to their own research projects. There will be room for discussions in plenary.

Theme 4: Presentations by students. All students present their own research designs. We assign discussants, and discuss them in depth.

Theme 5: Ask a PhD student. Several experienced PhD students present the main challenges in their research design, and how they have solved them. Plenary discussions.

Theme 6: Research ethics. Lecture(s) on research ethics  followed by an open discussion in the group. exercise on ethical challenges particular to participants' research designs. Exercises in smaller groups and well as plenary discussion.

Longitudinal work: During the semester, the participants are expected to work on their PhD research designs.