LFKK10258U Qualitative Methods in Agricultural Development

The knowledge and skills acquired through this course is recommended for for academic work at all levels including thesis work. It is a good choice for students interested in research design, methods, and methodology in general.

Examples are drawn mainly from natural resource management and agricultural development in the global South.

The course provides general skills in qualitative methods with a view to get the full benefit of subsequent thematic courses, thesis work and post-graduate careers.
 
In the course, we follow the research process from defining the research problem over research design, to selecting the appropriate methods, and then proceed to methods for qualitative data collection and analysis.

Specifically, the students will acquire knowledge in the following fields:
- Introduction to theory of science and different kinds of knowledge (very basic)
-Knowledge on available qualitative methods. Some knowledge about quantitative methods and mixed methods. Understanding pros and cons of each method and of combining them
- When and how to apply selected techniques for data collection (including interviews, questionnaires, participatory appraisals; participatory observation);
- How to plan for data collection
- how to ensure the quality of qualitative data
- how to analyse qualitative data.

The students will, among other things, obtain knowledge on:
- Research processes and design
- Planning and conducting data collection/fieldwork
- Qualitative data collection methods
- Quantitative data collection methods (small scale questionnaire surveys)  and mixed methods
- Data quality
- Some of the approaches to qualitative data analysis.