The International Journal of Social Research Methodology has published a new paper as part of a Special Issue  convened by guest editors Prof Melanie Nind (Pedagogy of Methodological Learning project PI), Dr Daniel Kilburn (UCL) and Dr Rebekah Luff (National Centre for Research Methods) and dedicated to the teaching of research methods.

‘I’m not a quants person’; key strategies in building competence and confidence in staff who teach quantitative research methods’ is a new work by authors Julie Scott Jones and John E. Goldring, and focusses on building quantitative teaching capacity amongst sociology staff:

Abstract

Initiatives, like the UK ESRC’s RDI/CI programmes and the Q-Step Centres, have a long-term aim of addressing the well-documented decline in the pool of academics able and willing to teach quantitative methods (QM). However, these initiatives will take time to make an impact; therefore, the upskilling of current staff is a vital strategy if we want to maintain QM in curricula. This paper draws on findings from the ESRC RDI project, ‘No More Pointy Clicky, numbers stuff; building staff quantitative skills’. This project focussed on upskilling staff in a large Sociology department. The project was committed to delivering training to develop staff competence in QM; however, it became clear that this alone would not be sufficient to build staff confidence. Therefore, the project rolled-out a more complex strategy that addressed a range of central issues, including, pedagogy, infrastructure, Departmental resourcing and strategy, and staff worldviews, which this article explores.

Full reference:

• Scott Jones, J. and Goldring, J. E. (2015) ‘I’m not a quants person’; key strategies in building competence and confidence in staff who teach quantitative research methods’, International Journal of Social Research Methodology. DOI:10.1080/13645579.2015.1062623.