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Exploring Educational Outcomes through National Datasets
Full text linkThis video features presentations from three researchers at UK data resources who discuss ways of exploring educational outcomes through national datasets.
The speakers discuss a wide range of data sources on educational outcomes, exploring gender pay gaps, assessments and labour market trajectories.
The speakers are: Jools Kasmire, who gives an introduction to the UK Data Service, the data sets available and how to access them; Francesca Borgonovi, who uses the rich and varied information contained in large-scale educational assessments to illustrate how gender gaps vary depending not only on what is being assessed, but also depending on when assessments are conducted and where assessments are conducted; Claire Crawford who uses Longitudinal Education Outcomes (LEO) data to explore variation in education and labour market trajectories.
The presentations were recorded for a webinar hosted by the Data Resources Training Network, titled Exploring Educational Outcomes through National Datasets, which took place on Friday, 14 June 2024
Big Qualitative Diary Data
Full text linkLaura Radcliffe and Leighann Spencer (both at University of Liverpool) discuss their approaches to big qualitative data generated from diary methods. They outline two key approaches: thematic trajectory analysis and event diagram analysis
Including Disabled Children and Young People in your Research
Full text linkDr Julia Hayes presents practical methods for making research accessible and engaging for disabled children and young people, emphasizing the importance of inclusive design processes and considering broader intersections beyond disability.
Dr Hayes, an educational psychologist specializing in inclusive education and conference illustrator, demonstrates how researchers can effectively include disabled children and young people in their studies through accessible design and participatory methods. She shares insights from her research in Colombian Escuela Nueva schools, highlighting the use of visual consent processes and PhotoVoice methodology to engage children as experts in their own experiences. Julia emphasizes thinking beyond disability to consider other intersecting factors like poverty and social exclusion that may affect children's participation and inclusion
Including Disabled People in Your Research
Full text linkThis module provides practical guidance for making research accessible and inclusive for disabled participants, covering platform considerations, alternative formats, and sensitive reporting approaches that recognize disabled people as valuable contributors rather than subjects of study.
Gemma Lumsdaine emphasizes that disabled people, representing one in four UK residents, bring unique perspectives and rich insights to research through their navigation of everyday barriers and challenges. The presentation covers practical accessibility considerations for questionnaires, focus groups, and reporting, while advocating for flexible approaches that accommodate diverse needs and the social model of disability that recognizes societal barriers rather than individual deficits
NCRM Bitesize Lessons for Teaching Social Science Research Methods 8: Facilitating the development of reflexive thinking for qualitative research
Full text linkReflexive thinking, or reflexivity, involves the researcher in critically assessing their positionality and the effect of this on their research process, data and findings. It enables exploration of ‘issues of power and privilege that exist between the researcher and the researched’. Saldaña and Omasta (2021: 43) define reflexivity as ‘individual reflection on one’s own relationship with the data, the participants, the nature of the study, and even with one’s own self as a researcher’; while reflection may involve ‘looking outward’, reflexivity requires ‘looking inward’.
Reflexivity in qualitative research is less about transparency and ‘truth’ (as these relate more to positivist goals); it is more coming from a recognition that the researcher influences the research. Going beyond critical reflection (the researcher considering their assumptions and their influence on their work), critical reflexivity engages the researcher in reflecting on how their positionality impacts on their knowing and their understanding. This presents a challenge to assumptions, for example, about how knowledge is constructed, or power dynamics. There is an interaction here: qualitative researchers both affect the research and are affected by it, and this makes reflexivity an essential part of the research process
Qualitative Analysis and Large Language Models
Full text linkThis webinar was organised by QUEST (Qualitative Expertise at Southampton) in collaboration with the National Centre for Research Methods, the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership and Work Future Research Centre. It was held on 22 October 2025.
The speakers were: Professor Susan Halford of the University of Bristol, Professor Leslie Carr of the University of Southampton, Sarah Jenner of the University of Southampton, Dr Marianne Aubin Le Quéré of Princeton University and Dr Casey Randazzo of University of California, Santa Barbara
Seeing differently: Making R accessible for visually impaired students through collaborative learning design
Full text linkThis is an experiential rather than research case study of pedagogic practice.
In this document, we provide an overview of the resources that were created to help a visually impaired undergraduate student in the social sciences learn introductory statistical analysis.
We offer insights into the lessons we learned, the approach taken, and the resources we used to teach statistics without sight and provide what we believe is one of the few attempts to try to explain not only how to teach statistics to a visually impaired student, but also to do so in a way that explains how to integrate the technology blind students rely on to learn statistics and explain how it works in a way that someone not familiar with accessibility software can understand.
It also includes a summary by our student Andrew detailing his experience of learning statistics using these resources.
Finally, we provide an overview of the resources created and how they can be integrated into wider teaching practice
NCRM Bitesize Lessons for Teaching Social Science Research Methods 7: Teaching Qualitative Interviewing Using a Developmental Approach
Full text linkThere are various pedagogical strategies for teaching interviewing which have been developed and researched by qualitative researchers. The pedagogy described in these strategies is about fostering the development of the art of qualitative interviewing. One way to support this is to adopt an intentionally developmental approach
Mobile Methods in Social Research
Full text linkThis webinar was organised by QUEST (Qualitative Expertise at Southampton) in collaboration with the National Centre for Research Methods, the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership and Work Future Research Centre. It was held on 2 July 2025.
The speakers were: Professor Ruth Bartlett of the University of Southampton; Sadie Rockliffe at the University of Brighton; Professor Gabrielle Lynch of the University of Warwick
Qualitative Data Archives
Full text linkThis Methods Futures Briefing focuses on changes to qualitative data archives. It first outlines what qualitative data archives are, using the UK’s Mass Observation Archive and its COVID-19 Collection as an exemplar. The advent of various technologies and social changes may impact the meaning and status of qualitative data archives, and this briefing highlights some social science and humanities (SSH) methodological concerns that may arise due to these changes