Guest post from Christopher Lamont and Mieczyslaw P Boduszynski , authors of Research Methods in Politics and International Relations, on the importance of methodology in PIR research.

Given the possibility of qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods approaches, what factors affect a choice of one approach over another for the design of a proposal?

Margaret Roller’s and Paul Lavrakas' Total Quality Framework is a straightforward tool for thinking about qualitative research designs. Learn about the TQF and find a collection of resources you can use at the design stage.

Gjoko Muratovski, author of Research for Designers will encourage us to think like designers, and cross disciplines as needed to develop innovative approaches.

There is often an assumption that research can be truly rigorous, or it can be “real world” research, and that the two are somehow mutually exclusive or at polar opposite ends of a spectrum. However, the world is not that black and white, and it is possible to have our cake and eat it, too.

Meet the collaborative team behind Making Sense of Social Research Methodology! They were our Mentors in Residence for February 2021.