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GRADUATE COURSE
GEOG 5025: Research
Design and Formulation in Human Geography
Course Director:
Joseph Mensah jmensah@yorku.ca
COURSE
DESCRIPTION
Geographical inquiry embraces
several theories of knowledge, ranging from positivism, phenomenology,
idealism to postmodernism. Not surprisingly, geographers employ a wide
variety of quantitative and qualitative methods in their research. Despite
this diversity, all geographers, regardless of their philosophical
grounding or methodological approach, make common decisions and go through
fairly similar processes—on such matters as topic selection, literature
review, and data collection and analysis—whenever they embark on scientific
research. This course seeks to guide students through these choices and
processes, by helping them understand the various philosophies and
methodologies of human geography together with their respective strengths
and weaknesses. The course conceptualizes quantitative and qualitative
methods as a continuum, rather than a totally separate polar typology. With
this course, students would come to appreciate the contemporary shift from
a dominant reliance on positivism and high levels quantitative techniques
to a more eclectic assemblage of quantitative and qualitative methods in human
geography.
Course Format
The course would use a
seminar format in which the instructor makes an hour, or so, presentation
of the scheduled topics and the students provide reviews of, and reactions
to, their assigned readings, to facilitate class discussion and debate.
Students would also be required, from time to time, to present their
answers to short, practical assignments to the class for feedback.
Required Readings:
To be assigned weekly
Evaluation
·
Class Participation—25
·
Four Short (Practical) Assignments—40
·
Research Proposal—35
Notes on Course Evaluation
Class participation:
Students would be assigned readings each week to critically appraise and
present their review/reaction to the class for discussion. The aim here is
not only to encourage critical reading of scientific papers and to share
the burden of reading the extensive course literature, but also to enhance
students’ ability to make academic presentation and to stimulate class
discussion and debate, as well.
Four Short Assignments:
This will entail short
assignments on how to undertake textual/discourse analysis, to design
questionnaire, and to code and analysis questionnaire using SPSS. This will
give students the opportunity to have a practical experience and feedbacks
on research design.
Research Proposal:
Students would be asked to write a research proposal geared for a
hypothetical funding, using the guidelines for SSHRC’s Standard Grant
Application. This would be used to assess students’ writing skills with
regards to clarity, organization, creativity, and ability to review
literature and to evaluate facts and figures.
TENTATIVE TOPICS
1. Philosophies underlying human geography research
2. Ethical Practice in Geographical Research
3. Working in Different Cultures
4. Choosing a Research Topic
5. Literature Search and Literature Review
6. Fundamentals of Research Proposal
7 Data Collection in Human Geography
·
Developing
and Administering
Questionnaire
·
Semi-Structured
Interviews and Focus Groups
·
Participant
Observation
8 Additional Strategies of Inquiry in Contemporary Human
Geography
·
Transnationalism
and Multi-sited Ethnography
·
Methods in
Feminist Geographies
·
Techniques in
Postmodernism: Deconstruction and Discourse Analysis
·
Marxist Method: Dialectics
·
Critical
(Social) Theory and Geographic Research
9. Analyzing Data and Reporting Result
·
Analyzing
Qualitative Data and Statistical Analysis using SPSS
·
Analyzing
Qualitative materials
·
Writing up
10. Conclusion: General Overview
Core Recommended
Readings
Antonius, Rachad. 2003. Interpreting Quantitative Data with SPSS (London,
Thousand
Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications).
Audi, Robert (ed.) 1997. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (Cambridge:
Cambridge
University Press).
Bernard, H. Russell (ed.) 1998. Handbook of Methods in Cultural Anthropology (Walnut
Creek
and London: Altamira Press)
Clifford, Nicholas and Valentine, Gill (eds.). 2003. Key Methods in Geography (London,
Thousand
Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications)
Cloke, Paul; Cook, Ian; Crang, Philip; Goodwin, Mark;
Painter, Joe; and Philo, Chris.
2004.
Practicing Human Geography
(London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi:
SAGE
Publications).
Corston, Rod and Colman, Andrew. 2003. A Crash Course in SPSS for Windows
(Oxford: Blackwell Publishing).
Crestwell, J.W. 1998. Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design: Choosing Among Five
Traditions
(Thousand Oak: Sage Publications) ISBN: 0761924426 (paperback)
Crestwell, John W. 2003. Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed
Methods
Approaches (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications). (ISBN: 0761901442)
Denzin, N.K. and Y.S. Lincoln (eds.) 2000. Handbook
of Qualitative Research
(London,
Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications)
Denzin, N.K. and Y.S. Lincoln (eds.) 2003, Strategies of Qualitative Inquiry
(London,
Thousand
Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications).
Flowerdew, Robin and David Martin, 1997. Methods in Human Geography: A Guide for
Students
Doing a Research Project (Edinburgh Gate, Harlow: Pearson Education
Limited).
Hoggart, Keith, Loretta Lees; and Anna Davies 2002. Researching Human Geography
(London:
Arnold).
Johnston, R.J. 1986 Philosophy
and Human Geography (London; Baltimore: Edward
Arnold)
Johnston, R.J. Derek Gregory, Geraldine Pratt, and
Michael Watts (eds.) 2000. The
Dictionary
of Human Geography (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 4th
Edition)
Limb, Melanie and Dwyer, Clair (eds.) 2001. Qualitative
Methodologies for
Geographer:
Issues and Debates (London: Arnold).
Peet, Richard, 1998. Modern
Geographical Thoughts (Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell
Publishers).
Robinson, Guy M. 1998. Methods and Techniques in Human Geography (Chichester and
London:
John Wiley & Sons).
Saukko, Paula 2003. Doing
Research in Cultural Studies: Introducing Qualitative
Methods
Windows (London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications).
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