Hi Linda, The methods courses I took last year is cross-discipline (within Social Science) as well. It is always a problem for students to understand the recondite research methods with unfamiliar examples. My first and second teacher give us an example in economics, which seems popular for everybody (e.g. estimating an empirical model that identifies determinants of GNP of some developed and developing countries). However, It was a tough work to write up the project without any knowledge of GNP.
My third teacher gave us some examples in sociology. On the first lecture, he introduce some data in Britain for us which we were going to use throughout the rest of course. He used the same survey and theory to practice all the methods. It saves a lot of time to concentrate on the method study itself. We usually get transcripts, data and some relevent paper before a lecture. And every lecture follows a class to practice the method we just learnt. The lecturer will answer any questions immediately on the course or the class forum online. I hope this experience is helpful for you. If you would like to know more about it, please write me to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Kindly regards, Shasha Zhang The Department of Sociology The University of Birmingham, UK
