Methodology option 1: Empirical Research Design

NSCR, Faculty of Law VU and A-LAB have Ph.D.s from widely varying background, ranging from people holding a masters in social science methodology to people with a law degree to whom empirical research is quite new. The workshop empirical research design is, for that reason, an open discussion workshop, in which participants work together on mini research design problems. The supervisor gives just a short introduction, then small groups of four or five participants have to develop and specify in, say, an hour time a design for investigating a given research question. The designs proposed in this way have to be presented to the other participants, who criticise and compare them with their own solution. This approach usually results in lively if not fierce discussions, and people get confronted with questions and solutions originating from quite different disciplines than their own. Research problems presented for solution tend to be widely different, in such a way that various research methods (observation, survey, interviews, experiments, participation, …) are suggesting themselves.
After having spent a few meetings this way, we gradually switch over to presenting and discussing the research design of the participants themselves, even if they are at present in an early, very provisional, or embryonic stage. One of the others is asked as discussant, and has to prepare critical questions and supportive suggestions, in order to open the general discussion. Participants are supposed to be present all seven meetings.